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[Don Andy]

If you haven't been convinced yet, in the civilization phase, you can add a tophat and dapper mustache to your creature to show just how civilized you are.

 

With a bit of fantasy, the "metal cap" you get in Space can pass as a monocle.

[Dacke]

The cell phase is pretty good, but mind-blowingly short. The creature creation is quite good and a lot of fun, but the actual gameplay is close to useless on every stage except the cell stage. To ruin the cell stage for us they made sure we can't create and share cells, so every time you play it you get the same dozen enemy cells.

The biggest problem I had with the game is this: how you create your things is close to irrelevant to gameplay. An example is these two monsters I just made. They have the same stats (shown in plain numbers ingame). As these main stats are almost everything that matters these two monsters are equally good at fighting, running, singing etc. More spikes also makes no difference.



What made me so fascinated with Spore when I first heard about it was the idea that I would be able to create awesome animals and then getting to try out their survivability. There is nothing of that now. Nothing at all. I get that people should be able to make their monsters look however they want without being smacked down by a harsh environment, but if I want to build an optimized killing machine, why not let me? The world could be easy enough to allow any build, but with challenges (like the epic monsters) to be tackled by the optimized killing machines.

The cell stage is much better in this way, where at least the placement of weapons and mouths affects survivability (though size and placements of eyes and movement-appendixes makes no difference).

The game gets much worse later on; designing the clothing, cars, boats, airplanes, buildings and spaceships is purely for decorational purposes (though sometimes giving a passive bonus). Additionally, you can barley see the details outside of the creator on these things. While making animals is really cool, the other design stages just feel like simple 3D-modellers tacked on to bad strategy games.

I would say that the Spore Creature Creator gives you 90% of the value of the full game for 10% of the price.

[ImaginaryThomas]

Well there is a degree of aesthetic pleasure about it, not just numbers. I think that to enjoy playing spore you have to be the kind of person who enjoys building things with lego and then playing with it, sending your space set on a space adventure or a pirate ship to plunder some booty and such not just setting it on a shelf or display.

Spore has a lot of gaps that imagination fills in. Some may consider this a fault but I think of it as more of an opportunity. With no dialogue or story progression beyond the baseline 'YOU EVOLVE AND STUFF', you're required to kind of make up the rest on your own which will give you a personal attachment to your creature/culture.

I'm into the beginning of the tribal stage now (thanks Direct2Download for releasing it at 10am so I couldn't play it till 3pm...) and I'm so into it. Looking back on the timeline of cell to creature is like a photo album getting nostalgic for those billions of years spent in the tide pools.

I found the same was true in oblivion. Despite having a robust storyline with more branches than I can possibly recount here your player character was extremely one dimensional. No personality, no voice, no background beyond he/she used to be in jail. So I made up my own. Gave him morals, beliefs and such and played the game the way this fictional character would have done it.

Not all games are 100% analytical. I see people who play WoW crunching numbers for DPS and whatnot but that just seems to suck all the fun out of it then you're just following guidelines for maximum output. I wouldn't pay $15 a month for more work.

So as my counterpoint to Dacke, Spore should be taken as less of the WoW effect mentioned above and more of a book or a poem or even a bucket of toys with some loose rules.

Also, this:

[Dacke]

I love playing with lego; always have and hopefully always will! I bought this awesome dinosaur kit a year ago, it has lots of joints so I can make monsters with real limbs! Also: using a very limited set of pieces is like 3D pixel-art!

Spore, however, is far too guiding to truly allow you to go bonkers with your imagination and it's too undynamic to do many of the interesting things I would like to do.

I'm sorry if I gave you the impression that I'm a numbercruncher. It's not just about making optimized killing machines, it's more about getting a feedback on your creations. If I make a blob with a hundred spikes, I expect it to be slow but hard to attack (just like how the cell stage works). If I make a small butterfly with huge wings I want it to fly better than a hippopotamus with tiny wings for nostrils. Looks is currently about 97% of the entire game; all the animals I make act almost exactly the same and I can't really see the point of leaving the Creature Creator (which I love, as it's like playing with lego and I get to fantasize as much as I want!)

Though I can see the attraction of finding breast-monsters and space invaders! Man, that is awesome!

[Hideous]

I love playing with lego; always have and hopefully always will! I bought this awesome dinosaur kit a year ago, it has lots of joints so I can make monsters with real limbs! Also: using a very limited set of pieces is like 3D pixel-art!

Spore, however, is far too guiding to truly allow you to go bonkers with your imagination and it's too undynamic to do many of the interesting things I would like to do.

I'm sorry if I gave you the impression that I'm a numbercruncher. It's not just about making optimized killing machines, it's more about getting a feedback on your creations. If I make a blob with a hundred spikes, I expect it to be slow but hard to attack (just like how the cell stage works). If I make a small butterfly with huge wings I want it to fly better than a hippopotamus with tiny wings for nostrils. Looks is currently about 97% of the entire game; all the animals I make act almost exactly the same and I can't really see the point of leaving the Creature Creator (which I love, as it's like playing with lego and I get to fantasize as much as I want!)

Though I can see the attraction of finding breast-monsters and space invaders! Man, that is awesome!

Lego? Try Blockland.

[Core Xii]

To ruin the cell stage for us they made sure we can't create and share cells, so every time you play it you get the same dozen enemy cells.

Are you serious? Is this really true? Because if it is, then there's zero incentive for me to actually buy the thing. What I was looking forward the MOST was to play the cell stage populated with other players' creations, since the default opposition the game ships with is too predictable once you encounter them once.

[Dragonmaw]

I am now hijacking this thread to post my buddy name for Spore.  It is, quite easily, Dragonmaw.

Back on topic, I really think that the game comes into its own, complexity-wise, in the Space Stage.  Everything else seems like a prelude, and the Space Stage is the actual meat of the game.

Or I'm just crazy.  Whatever.

[shinygerbil]

No, there are plenty of people who agree with you.

I totally didn't even read any of the hype surrounding this game, even after I bought the Creature Creator and pre-ordered Spore, right up until I actually played the game, I was basically like "so WTF is this all about then, you make creatures and fight them or what."

That made it oh-so-much better when I got to the Space stage, it blew me away.

I am very impressed.

[Lucaz]

Ignoring the hype was the best to do for this game. I'm just about to start the space age, and I'm looking forward for this. But I'm truly dissappointed with the spacechip creation. I thought it was going to be more technical, like a mix between the creature creator and Master of Orion spacecraft designer. Instead you do whatever you want, get the weapons and gear apart, and all you designed is the way it looks.

To ruin the cell stage for us they made sure we can't create and share cells, so every time you play it you get the same dozen enemy cells.

Actually it seems a bit pointless to share things in cell phase. You can't do anything too different, with the short duration of the phase, and the low number of points and parts.

[mrfredman]

I too was originally upset about the lack of shared creatures in the cell phase, but my justification is more philosophical than practical. I mean back when things we're first starting to evolve in ye olde primordial ooze there wasn't all that much variation. Everything came from the same original creatures and all of the branching and variation of life took years and years of evolution.

[Core Xii]

I mean back when things we're first starting to evolve in ye olde primordial ooze there wasn't all that much variation. Everything came from the same original creatures and all of the branching and variation of life took years and years of evolution.

And I'm fine with that. The problem here is that it's always the SAME set of creatures, i.e. complete lack of variation once you've seen them once.

Also, the enemy cells aren't very dangerous. I'd like to see some REAL competition with player-designed cells. I mean, after you've played the cell stage, you discover the "winning build" and then every time after that it's just routine. A game should not be routine.

The omnivore mouth part is overpowered IMO. Scale it up to max size and you can stick it in through spikes, claws, anything! So you can pretty much take on anything without any opposition. A carnivore vs carnivore is a battle where the two ram and flank each other... but when you have the omnivore mouth, you can just poke them through their mouths. Gets way too easy after that.

[Shambrook]

Spore is getting absoultly railroaded on Amazon reviews for it's DRM

http://www.amazon.com/Spore-Pc/dp/B000FKBCX4/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=videogames&qid=1221003072&sr=8-1

It's sitting at a total score of 1 star.

[muku]

Spore is getting absoultly railroaded on Amazon reviews for it's DRM

http://www.amazon.com/Spore-Pc/dp/B000FKBCX4/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=videogames&qid=1221003072&sr=8-1

It's sitting at a total score of 1 star.

 

I can only assume this is some anti-DRM guerilla campaign. I mean, look at those stats:

5 star:    2%     (46)
4 star:    1%     (34)
3 star:    0%     (17)
2 star:    2%     (42)
1 star:    92%     (1,724)

No way.

[Cheater‽]

Spore is getting absoultly railroaded on Amazon reviews for it's DRM

http://www.amazon.com/Spore-Pc/dp/B000FKBCX4/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=videogames&qid=1221003072&sr=8-1

It's sitting at a total score of 1 star.

 

I can only assume this is some anti-DRM guerilla campaign. I mean, look at those stats:

5 star:    2%     (46)
4 star:    1%     (34)
3 star:    0%     (17)
2 star:    2%     (42)
1 star:    92%     (1,724)

No way.

Probably not a campaign. A lot of reviewers arrived from sites that linked to Amazon, so they didn't know about it before.

[muku]

Yeah, but... I mean, I have seen complaints about DRM on Amazon before, but not to the extent where the "1 star because of DRM" reviews completely swamp everything else, at a ratio 9:1.

That said, I totally appreciate consumers finally putting a foot down against these ridiculous DRM schemes.

[Cheater‽]

Yeah, but... I mean, I have seen complaints about DRM on Amazon before, but not to the extent where the "1 star because of DRM" reviews completely swamp everything else, at a ratio 9:1.

I think that's because of how much this game was hyped though.

That said, I totally appreciate consumers finally putting a foot down against these ridiculous DRM schemes.

¡VIVA LA REVOLUCIÓN!

[JammingJim]

Apparantly it was a campaign mentioned on this zdnet article:

http://blogs.zdnet.com/hardware/?p=2558

it didn't stop Spore becoming the best seller on amazon video games though(unless they lie! )

[kyn]

DRM is a funny thing, it punishes the people who actually buy stuff, while pirates walk away

[G.D. Hamell]

I too was originally upset about the lack of shared creatures in the cell phase, but my justification is more philosophical than practical. I mean back when things we're first starting to evolve in ye olde primordial ooze there wasn't all that much variation. Everything came from the same original creatures and all of the branching and variation of life took years and years of evolution.

My only gripe so far with the game. Other than that it is pretty fun. Though there could be some more variation in the characters. With the DRM, I don't plan on uninstalling it on this PC anytime soon. Supposedly, you can have up to 5 machines with it installed now (http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2008/09/14/spore-five-activations/). The thing I want to experiment with is if I can install it on my PC and my Mac. I shall soon find out. Furthermore, Spore is the most unique game I have played in awhile.

[FARTRON]

SPORE: BEST GAME EVER

Spore is the biggest 4X game ever. Instead of a selection of empires to choose from, or a list of stats to tweak, you play through four billion years of evolution in several connected mini-games to create your species. The choices you make in each stage impacts your special abilities in the next, and through the rest.

Yes, you can grind your way through it. Yes, you can make a lame creature. Why you would waste your time with either strategy is beyond me. You can also make a crazy creature (maybe it could be more crazy, and maybe your design could have more of an impact on its behavior, but it's damn enjoyable as it is), mix strategies, and speed through any stage you don't enjoy particularly. I found something worthwhile in all of them.

Then comes space. And you can grind missions here if you want. Or you can go out and steal spice or attack planets or form alliances or explore the huge fucking galaxy or whatever you want. You can go terraform planets, reshape them, buzz tribes and cities, sample and uplift species.

I'd like it if the atmospheric combat had slicker controls, but it's still fun raiding a planet and messing up its defenses. Mega Laser is awesome BTW, though you need a good sized battery.

You can get updates on your creations in other player's games, when they form alliances or go to war, etc. This was surprisingly exciting to me, and made me want to make better creatures.

Spore isn't diablo, it isn't pacman, it isn't warcraft. It takes 4X games in a different direction than moo3 and galciv have been going with the genre, and has a very different kind of depth. But it is an awesome kind of depth if you bother playing with it.