Post by Revan on Oct 19, 2008 14:47:03 GMT -5
Spore is a game that has had a lot of mixed reviews and a lot of criticism for faults that really don't exist. I knew of its existence some 2+ years ago and knew to some degree what to expect, not the ultra-realistic game that I believe most people thought it would be, but a game very similar to the Sims in nature. The game is really too diverse to classify as one game due to its different phases, cell, creature, tribal, civilization, and finally, space, and thus I will review each separately.
As most of you already probably know, Spore starts you off as a single celled organism in the deep sea in a mini-game that resembles a pacman type game. You directly control the movement and other actions of this organism as you attempt to either eat other creatures or if you’re an herbivore, plant life, while at the same time being careful enough to avoid larger critters who would very much like to om nom nom your face off.
The evolution of the game at this point is my biggest complaint, it doesn't allow for a great diversity among the critters that you can create and the numbers of parts available are minimal, especially if you don't go out of your way to collect the parts that aren’t available to you from the start. Although this makes this mode somewhat repetitive, it's highly amusing for a short while and doesn't overstay its welcome in the progression to the next phase.
Creature mode is a welcome change from the cell phase, the new diversity among critters now brings to life what makes the game truly unique. The game from this point on is more about creativity than it is anything else. Your creature now evolves onto land and you are free to interact with other critters that have done the same. You're free to move around as you please either making friends with your neighbors or eating them at your discretion. I thought that the whole 'friend' system was kind of dumb, so I went for the blood and gore. The game features an interesting fighting system based on your creature's parts and abilities, for instance, how you shape your creature and what legs, arms, mouth(s), weapon(s) and other parts directly correlate to how well your creature will fare in a situation. The game is great because no matter how powerful you make your creature, there is always "a bigger fish" so to speak. The game still plays a little dull in that it is repetitive, yet like the first stage, it is short enough to be very fun when not continued for hours on end.
So you've made it to the tribal stage, you now have several creatures to control and a chieftain to lead them. Your tribe is based in a village which you are free to modify (namely your main hut) however you please. The game continues to follow the pattern of giving you the option to either be a pansy and ally with your neighbors or kill them all and by this point that does get a little boring.
My biggest complaint in the entire game is that there is little in the way of traits for your creatures, either you're a blood thirsty creature or one who loves to ride ponies and while it claims to let you be somewhere in the middle, it's just not worth it. Your progressions in this stage is measured by how many civilizations you make peace with or destroy and each time you perform this act, you gain access to new buildings allowing you to utilize tools such as spears and torches if you’re a warring nation or instruments if you're a peace loving nation.
Civilization stage is a welcome change from the first three. In this stage you begin to unlock more of the creative elements of the game from creating your own tanks to your boats and planes and eventually your space craft. The game plays as a very basic RTS style game and is quite enjoyable. Hardcore gamers may find this to be a bit dull, however you can really get into it because it isn't as taxing as other games are. It's not meant to be played like starcraft, it's meant to be played as a more relaxing RTS. You have three different directions you can go from here, economics, religion, or military based society, I went with a military state, so from this point on that's all I can really tell you about.
The game plays well, it has one established resource which you must occupy and draw from to maintain society. You start with one tank and the rest is up to you, I immediately rushed for the resources, claiming all but one of the 5 pools on my island before the other teams even began to do anything noticeable, which was rather disappointing. Because I rushed out, thinking that it would be more like starcraft, I was surprised to not be attacked quickly, thus I made about 20 tanks and attacked my two immediate neighbors, crushing them with ease due to their lack of resources. From here, I had another 4 nations to conquer who were all based at least one island away from me and thus I needed to construct boats; it was about this time that I realized that there were more resources to be had at sea, however defending them was a pain. Controlling the seas was much harder, but much more crucial than controlling the land from this point onwards. Ships were more powerful than tanks, which I found to be a big issue in the game play because my stranded tanks at my home island were being taken out by boats somewhat rapidly before I could amass my armada. Once I had done so, I found that taking other cities could be done directly from the sea with relative ease and I was able to destroy the rest of the tribes quickly.
One of my big complaints about this part of the game was a lack of balance, the tanks were too weak, the boats to strong and the planes didn't last more than a minute thanks to the overpowered turrets on cities. Planes I determined were a quick way to lose money and only served as cannon fodder for the defenses of enemy bases. Another interesting but entirely unnecessary element of the game was the set of 'god-like' powers that you as the commander possessed, everything from a giant bomb to lightning at your command. Although this was a good idea, it was poorly executed, the power of these weapons was far too great and the lack of these powers for the AI made the game a breeze once I unlocked the more powerful ones. This part of the game however, has the greatest replay value simply because of its familiar style of play (RTS).
Finally I reach the famed space stage only to find that it's not quite what I expected. It is filled with so much unlocking that I didn't even know what to do; the list of badges is quite intimidating. So I followed the tutorials and then had a general idea of how to play, however it wasn't all that much more than a fancy slightly more interesting way to grind than you would find for an MMO. There were several things available for you to do, make war and peace with other nations, terraform planets (my favorite), explore, run errands and screw with other ecosystems.
The most annoying part of this portion of the game was the resources. Your goal is to create colonies who will give you spice that you can go and sell to other colonies... but you need to be doing this 50% of your time to maintain a reasonable supply of everything you need, not exactly my idea of fun... this is where the cheats come in handy for resources... with my now unlimited pile of cash I purchased many upgrades to my ship and soon found myself having... almost nothing particularly unique from what I already had. I began with making peace with my closest neighbor however, to do so I needed to run some pathetic errand for them and upon completion I learned that being an ally with these people didn't help me a whole lot, one of my allies later in the game actually charged me some 50k more for repairs than people who were neutral to me.
War was slightly more fun but was less interesting due to the fact that you could bypass the killing of other ships if you knew what you were doing. I started a war with a nation who was getting a little close to my borders and then just went right into the heart of their planets not even bothering to take them over, just blowing up their cities, effectively destroying civilization on a planet in about 2 minutes. It wasn't long after I did this a few times that they begged for mercy.
Terraforming was my favorite aspect of the game, but it too got old after a while. You have two main elements that determine the habitability of a planet, heat and atmosphere. You have access to several purchasable tools to change these elements and eventually can unlock powers that just let you change them without buying anything... great. The idea is to change these elements to fit within a set of rings, T1 -- barely habitable, T2 -- sustaining life, T3 -- flourishing life and each time you get the atmosphere into a new ring, you must supply a (new) set of 2 herbivores, 1 carnivore, a small plant, a medium plant, and a large plant to sustain it which can be annoying if your cargo bay is small or you run out of one of these elements.
Exploring I found to be dull, but that's just because that's not my thing in general. The basic idea of adding that element to the game was to get you to take a closer look at planets and the motivation they used to get you to do so was new tools. You could find new tools (terraforming ones most of the time) on various planets, occupied or not by other life. The planets all began to look alike (even though apparently I wouldn't see the same one if I played for 80 years) and thus exploring quickly got old.
Screwing with other life was somewhat fun; you could search for societies that were in any of the previous phases (except cell) and drop monoliths on their planets to advance them to the next stage given a bit of time. This was rather fun, especially after killing them when they reached the space phase... HEY! What happened to idolizing my race as gods?!? Oh well. Other tools were also available for this pursuit which included ones that would supersize other critters making them Godzilla sized with fire breath, even the herbivores... fun.
Other quirks with the game included the 'Grox' nation, a group of militant people who allied with nobody who inhabited the center of the galaxy and occasionally trekked out to the outer rim of said galaxy just to pick a fight with little old me (or my stupid neighbors). They have more powerful ships and generally left a planet in ruins by the time you eliminated enough of them for them to retreat. This element of the game proved itself to be rather annoying because I would be doing something and then be called out to go and save some idiots who couldn't stand up to a fly... great. There was also an ecosystem crisis event that would occur just as often as the Grox attacks... this would make you run to a planet and try and save a race of species by as what Jimbo from south park would call "thinning out their numbers". Great. Now I get to kill animals that are infected to save the ones that aren’t, what fun.
Overall: The game is good fun for a few hours at a time, it's good for all ages, but be warned that it's easy to tire of if you over do it. Each phase has a few elements that make it unique and fun. This game gives you a great amount of freedom in what you do, yet it still limits you due to the nature of what it can be. I imagine that many of the flaws will be fixed in the inevitable expansions that it will have (like the Sims). If you're looking for something unique and or a good kick, go ahead and buy it, it's well worth the money, but don't get too attached or you will soon find yourself not wanting to play it, keep your distance. If nothing else, the game is innovative, it took a step in a new direction for video games and if you ask me, it did a great job, but it needs a lot more polishing.
Score: 85/100
As most of you already probably know, Spore starts you off as a single celled organism in the deep sea in a mini-game that resembles a pacman type game. You directly control the movement and other actions of this organism as you attempt to either eat other creatures or if you’re an herbivore, plant life, while at the same time being careful enough to avoid larger critters who would very much like to om nom nom your face off.
The evolution of the game at this point is my biggest complaint, it doesn't allow for a great diversity among the critters that you can create and the numbers of parts available are minimal, especially if you don't go out of your way to collect the parts that aren’t available to you from the start. Although this makes this mode somewhat repetitive, it's highly amusing for a short while and doesn't overstay its welcome in the progression to the next phase.
Creature mode is a welcome change from the cell phase, the new diversity among critters now brings to life what makes the game truly unique. The game from this point on is more about creativity than it is anything else. Your creature now evolves onto land and you are free to interact with other critters that have done the same. You're free to move around as you please either making friends with your neighbors or eating them at your discretion. I thought that the whole 'friend' system was kind of dumb, so I went for the blood and gore. The game features an interesting fighting system based on your creature's parts and abilities, for instance, how you shape your creature and what legs, arms, mouth(s), weapon(s) and other parts directly correlate to how well your creature will fare in a situation. The game is great because no matter how powerful you make your creature, there is always "a bigger fish" so to speak. The game still plays a little dull in that it is repetitive, yet like the first stage, it is short enough to be very fun when not continued for hours on end.
So you've made it to the tribal stage, you now have several creatures to control and a chieftain to lead them. Your tribe is based in a village which you are free to modify (namely your main hut) however you please. The game continues to follow the pattern of giving you the option to either be a pansy and ally with your neighbors or kill them all and by this point that does get a little boring.
My biggest complaint in the entire game is that there is little in the way of traits for your creatures, either you're a blood thirsty creature or one who loves to ride ponies and while it claims to let you be somewhere in the middle, it's just not worth it. Your progressions in this stage is measured by how many civilizations you make peace with or destroy and each time you perform this act, you gain access to new buildings allowing you to utilize tools such as spears and torches if you’re a warring nation or instruments if you're a peace loving nation.
Civilization stage is a welcome change from the first three. In this stage you begin to unlock more of the creative elements of the game from creating your own tanks to your boats and planes and eventually your space craft. The game plays as a very basic RTS style game and is quite enjoyable. Hardcore gamers may find this to be a bit dull, however you can really get into it because it isn't as taxing as other games are. It's not meant to be played like starcraft, it's meant to be played as a more relaxing RTS. You have three different directions you can go from here, economics, religion, or military based society, I went with a military state, so from this point on that's all I can really tell you about.
The game plays well, it has one established resource which you must occupy and draw from to maintain society. You start with one tank and the rest is up to you, I immediately rushed for the resources, claiming all but one of the 5 pools on my island before the other teams even began to do anything noticeable, which was rather disappointing. Because I rushed out, thinking that it would be more like starcraft, I was surprised to not be attacked quickly, thus I made about 20 tanks and attacked my two immediate neighbors, crushing them with ease due to their lack of resources. From here, I had another 4 nations to conquer who were all based at least one island away from me and thus I needed to construct boats; it was about this time that I realized that there were more resources to be had at sea, however defending them was a pain. Controlling the seas was much harder, but much more crucial than controlling the land from this point onwards. Ships were more powerful than tanks, which I found to be a big issue in the game play because my stranded tanks at my home island were being taken out by boats somewhat rapidly before I could amass my armada. Once I had done so, I found that taking other cities could be done directly from the sea with relative ease and I was able to destroy the rest of the tribes quickly.
One of my big complaints about this part of the game was a lack of balance, the tanks were too weak, the boats to strong and the planes didn't last more than a minute thanks to the overpowered turrets on cities. Planes I determined were a quick way to lose money and only served as cannon fodder for the defenses of enemy bases. Another interesting but entirely unnecessary element of the game was the set of 'god-like' powers that you as the commander possessed, everything from a giant bomb to lightning at your command. Although this was a good idea, it was poorly executed, the power of these weapons was far too great and the lack of these powers for the AI made the game a breeze once I unlocked the more powerful ones. This part of the game however, has the greatest replay value simply because of its familiar style of play (RTS).
Finally I reach the famed space stage only to find that it's not quite what I expected. It is filled with so much unlocking that I didn't even know what to do; the list of badges is quite intimidating. So I followed the tutorials and then had a general idea of how to play, however it wasn't all that much more than a fancy slightly more interesting way to grind than you would find for an MMO. There were several things available for you to do, make war and peace with other nations, terraform planets (my favorite), explore, run errands and screw with other ecosystems.
The most annoying part of this portion of the game was the resources. Your goal is to create colonies who will give you spice that you can go and sell to other colonies... but you need to be doing this 50% of your time to maintain a reasonable supply of everything you need, not exactly my idea of fun... this is where the cheats come in handy for resources... with my now unlimited pile of cash I purchased many upgrades to my ship and soon found myself having... almost nothing particularly unique from what I already had. I began with making peace with my closest neighbor however, to do so I needed to run some pathetic errand for them and upon completion I learned that being an ally with these people didn't help me a whole lot, one of my allies later in the game actually charged me some 50k more for repairs than people who were neutral to me.
War was slightly more fun but was less interesting due to the fact that you could bypass the killing of other ships if you knew what you were doing. I started a war with a nation who was getting a little close to my borders and then just went right into the heart of their planets not even bothering to take them over, just blowing up their cities, effectively destroying civilization on a planet in about 2 minutes. It wasn't long after I did this a few times that they begged for mercy.
Terraforming was my favorite aspect of the game, but it too got old after a while. You have two main elements that determine the habitability of a planet, heat and atmosphere. You have access to several purchasable tools to change these elements and eventually can unlock powers that just let you change them without buying anything... great. The idea is to change these elements to fit within a set of rings, T1 -- barely habitable, T2 -- sustaining life, T3 -- flourishing life and each time you get the atmosphere into a new ring, you must supply a (new) set of 2 herbivores, 1 carnivore, a small plant, a medium plant, and a large plant to sustain it which can be annoying if your cargo bay is small or you run out of one of these elements.
Exploring I found to be dull, but that's just because that's not my thing in general. The basic idea of adding that element to the game was to get you to take a closer look at planets and the motivation they used to get you to do so was new tools. You could find new tools (terraforming ones most of the time) on various planets, occupied or not by other life. The planets all began to look alike (even though apparently I wouldn't see the same one if I played for 80 years) and thus exploring quickly got old.
Screwing with other life was somewhat fun; you could search for societies that were in any of the previous phases (except cell) and drop monoliths on their planets to advance them to the next stage given a bit of time. This was rather fun, especially after killing them when they reached the space phase... HEY! What happened to idolizing my race as gods?!? Oh well. Other tools were also available for this pursuit which included ones that would supersize other critters making them Godzilla sized with fire breath, even the herbivores... fun.
Other quirks with the game included the 'Grox' nation, a group of militant people who allied with nobody who inhabited the center of the galaxy and occasionally trekked out to the outer rim of said galaxy just to pick a fight with little old me (or my stupid neighbors). They have more powerful ships and generally left a planet in ruins by the time you eliminated enough of them for them to retreat. This element of the game proved itself to be rather annoying because I would be doing something and then be called out to go and save some idiots who couldn't stand up to a fly... great. There was also an ecosystem crisis event that would occur just as often as the Grox attacks... this would make you run to a planet and try and save a race of species by as what Jimbo from south park would call "thinning out their numbers". Great. Now I get to kill animals that are infected to save the ones that aren’t, what fun.
Overall: The game is good fun for a few hours at a time, it's good for all ages, but be warned that it's easy to tire of if you over do it. Each phase has a few elements that make it unique and fun. This game gives you a great amount of freedom in what you do, yet it still limits you due to the nature of what it can be. I imagine that many of the flaws will be fixed in the inevitable expansions that it will have (like the Sims). If you're looking for something unique and or a good kick, go ahead and buy it, it's well worth the money, but don't get too attached or you will soon find yourself not wanting to play it, keep your distance. If nothing else, the game is innovative, it took a step in a new direction for video games and if you ask me, it did a great job, but it needs a lot more polishing.
Score: 85/100
