Spore

Name: Spore
System: PC
Developer: Maxis
Publisher: EA
Release Date: 2008
Genre: Strategy

I don't play new video games often, which explains my obsession with the SNES and Sega Genesis... and also Zork. Frankly, they're just too expensive for a college kid to afford, I don't really have all that much time to play them and the newfangled graphics scare me (this is a lie). If you really want a fun tirade about how new video games suck, go talk to Paul. The truth is that he just sucks at them.

Anyway... despite all this, I decided that I needed to play Spore. I had been excited about it for ages. It was by the creator of Sim City, Sim City 2000, Sim Ant, SimCopter, The Sims, Sim- er... you get the point. Will Wright is a genius, or at least he created two games that were great, and while I never played too much of The Sims and always found the incessant release of expansion packs annoying, Sim City 2000 is amazing. I wasted days of my youth building Mattopolis, Mattland, Matt City, St. Matthewsburg and destroying Egypt Falls.

Spore was supposed to be the greatest video game ever... the most diverse, the most interesting, the most fun... it was supposed to have everything, be everything as it spanned evolution from one-celled organisms to space-traveling civilization. But you know what? It kinda sucks.

Don't get me wrong, it's a good game, it really is, and I enjoyed it a lot, but it's not a great game because there is so much missing. Playing it I just felt so much potential had gone to waste. Is that the games fault? Probably not... but it is Will Wright's for trying to create the ultimate game and failing. The trouble is inherent in its design, it was made to be so much bigger than it could ever hope to be. It's five games in one, which necessitates stripping down each one far too much. Of course, I'm still playing the Space stage, which is fun enough, and making creatures, which is great, but there is something missing, and it's not a little problem. Because of this, I have a hard time truly ranking it. While it was fun to play, I feel as if I would be better served playing a game of flOw, then a game of E.V.O, then some Age of Mythology, followed by a game of Civ II and then some Galactic Civilizations II back-to-back-to-back... we'll you get the idea. All these stages in Spore are fun, but so incomplete. Besides, it has a ridiculous DRM.

Cell Stage

A fun and simple stage that is basically a rip off of flOw, a game that's free to download online. Despite the fact that flOw is superior from a strictly gameplay standpoint, the fact that you decide the look and evolution of your creature is nice. My only real gripe with the stage is that you do not have actual control over your character, but point it in a direction and it heads that way. This control method works well in later stages, but not so great here. This stage could be much better if you could control your character like you can in fl0w, turning on a dime, speeding up and slowing down at will, being able to use your different attacks by button presses. It would also be nice if the creatures in this stage didn't basically all look identical... just a little more customization would be great. I'm not asking for as many options as the creature stage, just a few more so that this stage could warrant a replay now and again.

Creature Stage
A decent stage, but again the control holds things back some. I really believe that things would be better with direct control of your character and his combat actions. This would lend more to an action game feel. As it is, you run around either killing things (carnivore) or dancing and singing or other creatures (herbivore) in order to gain parts and evolve your creature. However, the real meat of this stage is creature evolution, which it excels at. There are so many parts to collect that you could literally spend days messing with your character, adding parts, removing others and deciding just what you like. Despite this, the creature creation menu is the only real draw here, and that can be accessed from the main panel and with all the options right away, instead of having to find parts. While longer than the cell stage, this is always a pretty quick affair.

Tribal Stage
This might be my second favorite stage of the game. While there is really not much to it, wiping out other tribes is fun. The resource gathering aspect is shallow, and while there is no technological progress to speak of, it is still a fun, but quick stage. The goal is to expand your village so that you can either conquer or ally with neighboring villages. In order to do this, you need a higher population, and to get a higher population you need more food. You gain food either by hunting, fishing or stealing from other tribes. You can build a few different buildings. Units are divided into classes, your chief, soldiers (spear throwers, archers, axemen), fishermen and musicians (maracas, didgeridoos, drums). Like the entire game, it would benefit from being longer and deeper. More weapons, more technological development, the ability to control more than one village... all these things would help greatly.

Civilization Stage
Yawn. Perhaps the most bare-bones stage in the game when compared to the games that it was based off of and without a doubt the easiest. You rush to get as many resources as you can before other civilizations pop up, then you mass build units and just swarm them. Victory was never in doubt, and while the other stages are not difficult by any means, this was insanely easy. Like the creature stage and the tribal stage before it, this stage is only an obstacle to get to Space. You can remain in these stages as long as you wish, but there is no point... These stages need to become longer and deeper, so that they stand on their own merits rather than something that needs to be beaten to get to the real game.

Space Stage
The best part of the game, but there is still a lot to be desired here. It almost seems as if the game has developed schizophrenia. Am I controlling a space empire or just a single space craft? Either would be fine with me... I would enjoy a nice space strategy game with fleets of ships and planets to administer or a game in the vein of Star Trek, traveling through space, exploring, fighting enemies and everything else. However, the game designers try to make you do both and cripple either option in the process. You are forced to build all your colonies yourself, but you can't build transport ships to trade spice and are forced to transport it for yourself. Yet, you have to buy goods from your own planets, and they charge more than anywhere else. You cannot even recharge your ship for free at your own colonies... the colonies that you built. Worst of all, despite the fact that you seemingly control this empire, you cannot build any other spacecraft than the one you already have. This forces you to fight wars against other species with many ships with just your one and a few allied ships which are easily destroyed. My other major issue is that your relations with other species seem completely independent of each other. Countless times I broke an alliance to attack a species and ccompletely wipe them out, yet this had no effect upon how other species felt about me. This is just completely illogical. It is also extremely annoying to be forced to buy colony packs one at a time rather than buying in bulk and seems to dissuade expansion, which makes little sense considering just how many stars are in the stage.


Despite all of these problems, all of the stages are a lot of fun. It's a lot of fun creating a creature and attacking other things in the Cell and Creature stages, wiping out other tribes in the Tribal and just steamrolling schmucks in Civilization, not to mention how amazing fun the space stage really is. Flying around and discovering planets, terraforming, changing planet's colors and landforms, abducting animals and other species... it is all great. I really enjoyed building a nice little Empire, even though 95% of my planets are superfluous. The interfaces are all elegant and the graphics are beautiful. The game is just so diverse, the planets so numerous, the aliens so weird and attacking the Grox does seem like it will be a challenge. Moreover, the wide array of creatures, buildings and vehicles you can create is mind boggling. Perhaps the best part about this creation aspect is that Spore connects online and automatically downloads the creations of others into your universe. I've never played a game that lets you create such a vibrant and unique world. While I would prefer a deeper game, I understand why they made it so easily accessible. Am I disappointed? Yeah, but that doesn't stop me from enjoying this game a whole helluva lot.

Score: 7/10