Post by Gilvan Blight on Sept 29, 2008 11:27:31 GMT -5
Quickly: not what it was hyped to be, still fun though limited.
Summary: Probably the most hyped game in EA history (and that's saying a lot), Spore is finally out for PCs everywhere. This is the game that was toted to be the Sim game to end all Sim games. Sim LifeX1000. You start off as a single celled organism and through clever play you evolve through life, eventually leading an armada of the evolved intelligent version of your creature on a quest of galactic conquest. In between you get develop legs and walk on land, discover fire and form the first tribe, and build your first city and then go take over your world.
In actuality you do indeed get to do all of those things, just not quite the way it was hyped or you expected. Each stage of the game is like a glorified Macro Game. Macro vs Mini or Micro as they are bigger the most micro/mini games, but not big enough to be a game on their own. Each game is played differently with one thing in common. By completing whatever the set task is for the game you unlock parts or tools. I like to think of it like Lego Bricks. You do the right thing you get new Bricks. You then take these bricks and you can add them to the creation that is your avatar, making it better. This is the way you 'evolve'. There is no algorithm for it, and no digital DNA (like Sim Life), it's just like Lego, where you get set bricks to build something and then unlock more bricks to make it better as your progress.
At the Microbial stage you control a microscopic creature and the 'bricks' are found by eating other creatures or plants depending on whether you chose herbivore or carnivore. The bricks you get are different types of weapons (spikes, mouth, claws), mobility devices (flagellum, jets, fins), sensory organs (eyes, years, antenna), and general aesthetic pieces. You are rated on three stats, Heath, Combat and Speed and these change depending on the parts you use. You eat enough things you grow bigger, you grow bigger enough and you can jump to the next stage.
The Creature stage has you change the way your creature looks adding a bunch of new brick sets like legs and arms, hands and feet, tails, fins, spines, frill, etc. Your stats stay the same but now you get skills based on what parts you put on. Put on Wings and you can Fly, strong feet let you jump, a articulate mouth can make you sing, etc. This stage really reminded me of an offline MMO. You run around killing mobs to unlock bricks so you can kill more mobs. Or you can run around impressing mobs with social skills to unlock bricks so you can impress more mobs. Or a mix of both. How you act at this stage determines a special skill in the next stage. This actually continues at each stage, where your behavior determines your racial traits (e.x. Aggressive, Passive, Religious, Social, Warrior etc). After your kill or impress enough creatures you can evolve to the next stage.
At the next stage you stop playing a single avatar and enter RTS mode. Here your creatures have formed a tribe. Instead of adding bricks to your creatures you now start adding buildings to your Village. You can develop weapons or peaceful items like didgeredoos (sp). Here again you explore out and meat other tribes and either befriend them or wipe them off the planet. Each time you do you get more Bricks to improve your own tribe. Eventually your Village evolves into a city.
At the City stage you continue to develop your city, this time actually designing buildings from three types (Factories, Housing and Entertainment) and have to decide how to lay these out to keep the citizens happy and productive. Once you have your city set up you start to develop vehicles. First only land and water vehicles. Now you use these vehicles to either attack and destroy enemy cities or to convert them to your cause. Along with this is the usual RTS resource gathering where you have to claim and fight over Spice Mines. Here the bricks you get are mainly used to improve your vehicles, though most are just for aesthetics. Once you take over (by force or religion) a couple other cities you unlock Air vehicles. Take over every city and you get to design a Space Ship.
The last stage of the game has you back to controlling just one avatar. This time your ship. You fly your ship around the galaxy founding colonies and meeting other races. This part of the gameplay is vastly different from the previous stages and plays like a mix of Master of Orion, Eve Online, Star Wars Galaxies and XCom. In general you go around doing things, doing things well and enough times unlocks badges, get enough badges and you get promoted. Getting promoted unlocks new things and lets you add to your fleet (very useful for any combat you are in). Eventually you can reach the rank of The Omnipotent. The types of things you can do are hugely varied. You can get badges just for exploring, changing the colour of planets, teraforming, meeting other races, setting up trade agreements, upgrading your own cities and planet, expanding your empire, making peace and alliances, traveling very far, visiting the same place 50 times, and so on. There are a ton of things you can do and the scale and open endedness of this section of the game is truly impressive.
Oddly the game doesn't end when you hit the max rank, though you can't change or evolve anymore. There is mention of a race called the Grox and a mystery at the center of the universe, perhaps doing something with that will end the game (aka show a cut-scene and play credits).
One interesting thing in all of this is the fact that at any time the creature/vehicle/race you meet could be something created by another player. Everything you make gets added to the massive Spore database and every time you encounter something new it randomly picks something out of that database for you to meet. This means you get to see all kinds of cool and/or messed up stuff made by other people. While it isn't an MMO, and you can't actually interact with other players, you do get to interact with a horde of player created content.
[glow=green,2,300]The Good:[/glow]Though I was disappointed in what I got vs what I expected in this (see The Ugly) it was still a fun game. Each stage had it's appeal and I can't deny the fun of creating your own creature from scratch. The tools in the game for making stuff are truly amazing. You can make just about any type of creature you can imagine. By the end of the my creatures were Purple, Centaur like things with 4 legs, and 2 sets of arms, and a fang filled snout. Next time around I want to try to make C'Thulhu. Even making cars and buildings is fun and again the tools allow for an insane mix of creations. Of all the stages I truly enjoyed the Space Stage. That part of the game is the one part I would call a Good Game. It also had that Maxis/Sim addictive effect, where I just wanted to explore one more planet, or transplant one more species before quitting.
[glow=yellow,2,300]The Bad:[/glow]Though the space stage was great, I found all of the earlier stages disappointing. None of them were deep enough to be good. They were like poor mans versions of other games. The Cell stage reminded me of a few flash games I had played, and didn't enjoy much. The creature stage felt like a bad offline MMO. The Tribe and City stages were poor excuses for RTS games. None of them were horrible or unplayable, they just felt like watered down versions of better games.
Shortish. The first 4 stages go by way too quick, with me getting through about two a night after only a couple hours play a night. The space stage though was hugely long in comparison. In totally though I spent about 20 hours to get one race from cell to Omniscient. Thankfully the Space stage was the most fun. Of course now I can make another species and do it all over again, try being a Docile Herbivore instead of eating and killing anything so there is some definite replay value built in.
[glow=red,2,300]The Ugly:[/glow]Where the the game we were promised? I thought I would put this in and have this generic cell to start with, and then I would decide if I should eat plankton or another cell, and how I did that, what I ate, how often, etc. would determine how my cell evolved. Then eventually my cell would grow and evolve and walk. Then I would get to walk around and how I acted, what I did, what I ate, what I attacked and how would determine how I evolve. For example if I keep trying to bite things I might evolve fangs, or if I kept punching things I might develop claws, or if I played defensively maybe I would develop scales or something. I though that's what this game was supposed to be. I was wrong. Instead I have Lego. I get to build a guy, then get new stuff I can add to the guy. Eventually I have to rebuild him with legs, and I get stuff I can add to him. Then I don't even get to build anything for a stage, except for choosing which upgrades to add to buildings. When I get to build again it's cars and boats and planes. And then Buildings. Eventually I can colour planets and add creators, and I have to build 3 different types of buildings on every plant I take over. All in all I built a lot of stuff, but none of it Evolved. None of it changed due to the way I played. I was very disappointed this wasn't the game I thought it was supposed to be.
[glow=purple,2,300]Overall:[/glow]Within minutes of playing this I was hugely disappointed. This is not the game that has been hyped for the last 5 years. I'm guessing they just couldn't do it, even with all the push backs and delays they just couldn't make the game that should have been Spore. Now once you have accepted this fact, how is the game that is Spore? It's alright, it's fun and has it's moments. Until I got to the space stage I would have said it wasn't worth the $60 I paid for it, but then that last stage really made up for it to me. The earlier stages are like simplified versions of better games, and except for getting to make cool things with some rather impressive tools, there's not much there. The last stage though is a true sandbox experience with an amazingly large playground to play in. I don't think you could ever visit every planet in the Spore galaxy but that's due to the amount of time you would have to spend and not a limitation in the game. All in all I think this is a good game and I really liked playing through it the first time. I'm currently not sure if I will go through it again and try a different style of race, but the options always there.
A note on the copy protection: everyone online is all up in arms about the DRM or whatever the heck it's called on this game. Personally I didn't and don't have a problem with it. I don't need to put this on more then three PCs and even if I did I would just call the 1800 number like I have to every time I re-install XP. There's no truth to the fact the game installs a Root-kit you can't uninstall and even EA has removed some of the licensing limitations, that people had the biggest problem with. What I suggest is that if this type of thing really does concern you check out the big gaming sites like Gamasutra and 1up and find out the truth behind all of the allegations against EA.
Summary: Probably the most hyped game in EA history (and that's saying a lot), Spore is finally out for PCs everywhere. This is the game that was toted to be the Sim game to end all Sim games. Sim LifeX1000. You start off as a single celled organism and through clever play you evolve through life, eventually leading an armada of the evolved intelligent version of your creature on a quest of galactic conquest. In between you get develop legs and walk on land, discover fire and form the first tribe, and build your first city and then go take over your world.
In actuality you do indeed get to do all of those things, just not quite the way it was hyped or you expected. Each stage of the game is like a glorified Macro Game. Macro vs Mini or Micro as they are bigger the most micro/mini games, but not big enough to be a game on their own. Each game is played differently with one thing in common. By completing whatever the set task is for the game you unlock parts or tools. I like to think of it like Lego Bricks. You do the right thing you get new Bricks. You then take these bricks and you can add them to the creation that is your avatar, making it better. This is the way you 'evolve'. There is no algorithm for it, and no digital DNA (like Sim Life), it's just like Lego, where you get set bricks to build something and then unlock more bricks to make it better as your progress.
At the Microbial stage you control a microscopic creature and the 'bricks' are found by eating other creatures or plants depending on whether you chose herbivore or carnivore. The bricks you get are different types of weapons (spikes, mouth, claws), mobility devices (flagellum, jets, fins), sensory organs (eyes, years, antenna), and general aesthetic pieces. You are rated on three stats, Heath, Combat and Speed and these change depending on the parts you use. You eat enough things you grow bigger, you grow bigger enough and you can jump to the next stage.
The Creature stage has you change the way your creature looks adding a bunch of new brick sets like legs and arms, hands and feet, tails, fins, spines, frill, etc. Your stats stay the same but now you get skills based on what parts you put on. Put on Wings and you can Fly, strong feet let you jump, a articulate mouth can make you sing, etc. This stage really reminded me of an offline MMO. You run around killing mobs to unlock bricks so you can kill more mobs. Or you can run around impressing mobs with social skills to unlock bricks so you can impress more mobs. Or a mix of both. How you act at this stage determines a special skill in the next stage. This actually continues at each stage, where your behavior determines your racial traits (e.x. Aggressive, Passive, Religious, Social, Warrior etc). After your kill or impress enough creatures you can evolve to the next stage.
At the next stage you stop playing a single avatar and enter RTS mode. Here your creatures have formed a tribe. Instead of adding bricks to your creatures you now start adding buildings to your Village. You can develop weapons or peaceful items like didgeredoos (sp). Here again you explore out and meat other tribes and either befriend them or wipe them off the planet. Each time you do you get more Bricks to improve your own tribe. Eventually your Village evolves into a city.
At the City stage you continue to develop your city, this time actually designing buildings from three types (Factories, Housing and Entertainment) and have to decide how to lay these out to keep the citizens happy and productive. Once you have your city set up you start to develop vehicles. First only land and water vehicles. Now you use these vehicles to either attack and destroy enemy cities or to convert them to your cause. Along with this is the usual RTS resource gathering where you have to claim and fight over Spice Mines. Here the bricks you get are mainly used to improve your vehicles, though most are just for aesthetics. Once you take over (by force or religion) a couple other cities you unlock Air vehicles. Take over every city and you get to design a Space Ship.
The last stage of the game has you back to controlling just one avatar. This time your ship. You fly your ship around the galaxy founding colonies and meeting other races. This part of the gameplay is vastly different from the previous stages and plays like a mix of Master of Orion, Eve Online, Star Wars Galaxies and XCom. In general you go around doing things, doing things well and enough times unlocks badges, get enough badges and you get promoted. Getting promoted unlocks new things and lets you add to your fleet (very useful for any combat you are in). Eventually you can reach the rank of The Omnipotent. The types of things you can do are hugely varied. You can get badges just for exploring, changing the colour of planets, teraforming, meeting other races, setting up trade agreements, upgrading your own cities and planet, expanding your empire, making peace and alliances, traveling very far, visiting the same place 50 times, and so on. There are a ton of things you can do and the scale and open endedness of this section of the game is truly impressive.
Oddly the game doesn't end when you hit the max rank, though you can't change or evolve anymore. There is mention of a race called the Grox and a mystery at the center of the universe, perhaps doing something with that will end the game (aka show a cut-scene and play credits).
One interesting thing in all of this is the fact that at any time the creature/vehicle/race you meet could be something created by another player. Everything you make gets added to the massive Spore database and every time you encounter something new it randomly picks something out of that database for you to meet. This means you get to see all kinds of cool and/or messed up stuff made by other people. While it isn't an MMO, and you can't actually interact with other players, you do get to interact with a horde of player created content.
[glow=green,2,300]The Good:[/glow]Though I was disappointed in what I got vs what I expected in this (see The Ugly) it was still a fun game. Each stage had it's appeal and I can't deny the fun of creating your own creature from scratch. The tools in the game for making stuff are truly amazing. You can make just about any type of creature you can imagine. By the end of the my creatures were Purple, Centaur like things with 4 legs, and 2 sets of arms, and a fang filled snout. Next time around I want to try to make C'Thulhu. Even making cars and buildings is fun and again the tools allow for an insane mix of creations. Of all the stages I truly enjoyed the Space Stage. That part of the game is the one part I would call a Good Game. It also had that Maxis/Sim addictive effect, where I just wanted to explore one more planet, or transplant one more species before quitting.
[glow=yellow,2,300]The Bad:[/glow]Though the space stage was great, I found all of the earlier stages disappointing. None of them were deep enough to be good. They were like poor mans versions of other games. The Cell stage reminded me of a few flash games I had played, and didn't enjoy much. The creature stage felt like a bad offline MMO. The Tribe and City stages were poor excuses for RTS games. None of them were horrible or unplayable, they just felt like watered down versions of better games.
Shortish. The first 4 stages go by way too quick, with me getting through about two a night after only a couple hours play a night. The space stage though was hugely long in comparison. In totally though I spent about 20 hours to get one race from cell to Omniscient. Thankfully the Space stage was the most fun. Of course now I can make another species and do it all over again, try being a Docile Herbivore instead of eating and killing anything so there is some definite replay value built in.
[glow=red,2,300]The Ugly:[/glow]Where the the game we were promised? I thought I would put this in and have this generic cell to start with, and then I would decide if I should eat plankton or another cell, and how I did that, what I ate, how often, etc. would determine how my cell evolved. Then eventually my cell would grow and evolve and walk. Then I would get to walk around and how I acted, what I did, what I ate, what I attacked and how would determine how I evolve. For example if I keep trying to bite things I might evolve fangs, or if I kept punching things I might develop claws, or if I played defensively maybe I would develop scales or something. I though that's what this game was supposed to be. I was wrong. Instead I have Lego. I get to build a guy, then get new stuff I can add to the guy. Eventually I have to rebuild him with legs, and I get stuff I can add to him. Then I don't even get to build anything for a stage, except for choosing which upgrades to add to buildings. When I get to build again it's cars and boats and planes. And then Buildings. Eventually I can colour planets and add creators, and I have to build 3 different types of buildings on every plant I take over. All in all I built a lot of stuff, but none of it Evolved. None of it changed due to the way I played. I was very disappointed this wasn't the game I thought it was supposed to be.
[glow=purple,2,300]Overall:[/glow]Within minutes of playing this I was hugely disappointed. This is not the game that has been hyped for the last 5 years. I'm guessing they just couldn't do it, even with all the push backs and delays they just couldn't make the game that should have been Spore. Now once you have accepted this fact, how is the game that is Spore? It's alright, it's fun and has it's moments. Until I got to the space stage I would have said it wasn't worth the $60 I paid for it, but then that last stage really made up for it to me. The earlier stages are like simplified versions of better games, and except for getting to make cool things with some rather impressive tools, there's not much there. The last stage though is a true sandbox experience with an amazingly large playground to play in. I don't think you could ever visit every planet in the Spore galaxy but that's due to the amount of time you would have to spend and not a limitation in the game. All in all I think this is a good game and I really liked playing through it the first time. I'm currently not sure if I will go through it again and try a different style of race, but the options always there.
A note on the copy protection: everyone online is all up in arms about the DRM or whatever the heck it's called on this game. Personally I didn't and don't have a problem with it. I don't need to put this on more then three PCs and even if I did I would just call the 1800 number like I have to every time I re-install XP. There's no truth to the fact the game installs a Root-kit you can't uninstall and even EA has removed some of the licensing limitations, that people had the biggest problem with. What I suggest is that if this type of thing really does concern you check out the big gaming sites like Gamasutra and 1up and find out the truth behind all of the allegations against EA.