Spore is meant to be the next best seller and to open up a whole new genre in terms of gaming so as an already experienced Spore player, I have decided to write a review for anyone who cares to listen! Im not explaining what spore is, justs its playability and how it compares to expectations.
Played for 20+ hours on this game.
Reviewing medium/hard levels, an experienced gamer.
Overview: Bad: Overly simplified in the first stages, wont entertain an older gamer for much longer than it takes to get 2-3 hours into the space age. Good: Varied gaming genres, you will like at least one part of it. Unique in terms of idea, great controls. Great editors, lots of other peoples content - endless exploring to do. A cheeky reference to a star trek story line in the space age as well.
So onto my review, stage by stage.
Stage 1 - Cell stage.
stage rank:3 Very entertaining, kwerky graphics, would make a brilliant phone game. 2D. Easy to control, Seriously an 8 year old could pick this game up and play it with no instruction. Very limited choices in terms of tactics or "body parts". Your either going left right or straight as far as that goes eg herbivor omnivor carnivor.
Stage 2 - Animal stage
stage rank:2. You get introduced to the creature editor, it really is what makes this game stand out, can spend hours messing around with just that (and I did). This part was abit more challenging and there was more depth in terms of what you can do to other species, you can try and be friends, eat them, run away from them. Also I liked the way you see aliens and see things that you eventually do in the space age from the animals point of view, GREAT. Also the introduction of giant monsters that kill you was also something else to be wary off, I mean id just finnished dancing with some friendly looking cock monsters and then all of a sudden my head gets ripped of by a dinasour behind me.
Stage 3 - Tribal stage stage rank:4 - Ok this is where it gets sour, not only is this supremely easy but you are restricted with where you can build stuff 6 flipplin slots?! is that it!! Bit of a joke, anyway basically just collect food for 5 mins, make babies, get horns go to the brown camp and they ally with you, then do exactly the same thing with all the other camps and you complete this stage, It literally takes about half an hour to do which is very disapointing and completely out of proportion with the other stages. On the plus side I like the "dressing" of your animal editor which is introduced here although its nothing worth paying extra for.
Stage 4 - Civ stage stage rank:5, This was terrible, im sorry but it just was, you only get a choice of building either a house, a factory, a pub. Thats it, and you have to build them in given "slots" to do anything. This really annoyed me as I came to this game after loving things like sim city and age of empires where there is a lot of detail in building up a good civilisation. Here its nothing. But thats not the only bad thing, if you have been assigned as a "religious" type player then you are completely outgunned by any military forces around when it comes to taking over cities, it literally takes twice as long to win a city as a religious force than a military force. Of course I still won but it was a complete mismatch of abilities. So in short if you were military it was to easy, if you were religous, it was too hard. Trying to be an economist the lack of abilities short of collecting spice really kept me disinterested. The easiest way to win in this stage was to be military, then economic, then religous.
Stage 5 - Space stage rank:1
When you first enter this stage you are just overewelmed and this is what ive put most of the bad reviews down too. People not giving it a few hours of playing time to really see the depth and tactics that lie within this game.
This is when the game actually becomes a challenge, not only does it take a while to get used to navigating the solar systems the imagry is just awe inspiring as you zoom out from the tiniest plant out to the entire galaxy with 500,000 visitable planets inside surrounded by other galaxys in the distance. They even managed to create a lose fitting story line based on the borg from star trek in this stage which gives things an interesting twist and was probably the only reason I kept playing this stage for hours and hours as I worked out how to defeat them and defend my colonies.
This stage seems to be the most thought out and terraforming planets, trading/destroying and exploring species is what this game is all about in my opinion and its what ive paid the money for. Some annoying points though, firstly you can only set up 3 trade routes at a time which i guess is fair enough considering there are 1000000s of planets to trade with in this game but still. Also being a "military" nation and only being able to control a small ship and eventually up to 6 allied ships does kinda suck, this is no war game and if thats what your looking for then you will be disapointed. Another major downer is the annoying pirate/brox attacks that you have to answer every 5 minutes. Literally killing these pirates are like killing flies, its so easy, yet if you dont do it then you lose your way of earning and you will soon have no money to buy tools with and you cant get on with the fun stuff like destroying brox planets and making my own themed planets. I would liken the pirates to going to the toilet. You know you have to go, but its always at a really inconvient time at work or when your out.
Well thats all hope you find it useful!
FINAL WORD: This game is nothing like demonstrations in 06, I am disapointed with it as the gameplay is completely below par, this is not a new generation of game, its just a bad game with very customisable content.
I found spore to be nothing like the demo build of 06. Instead of a deep, challenging fun game they released a childish, short, simple and boring game. It really is that bad... i HAD to pirate my version to avoid the DRM, i had it on pre-order tho so i can still connect to the web. All is good!
The best parts of the game are the cell stage(how you change your cell matters), the creature stage(gets old VERY fast. Fun whilst it lasts tho) and the space stage(only on the easy difficulty, that way you arent constantly attacked and hated by everything... gives you the chance to explore).
I would say its worth a download, certainly not worth buying.
The Space Stage is the best, you're right, but it also reaches a point at which you've done everything you can fairly quickly. After just a few hours, I had an empire which was producing spice of every colour at a rate of around 500-600/hour (which is completely useless, because they arbitrarily limit the amount of spice a planet can retain to 30 and the amount your ship can hold to 99). Once you've done that, there's no challenge to the game. You can just buy everything you'd ever need.
Every other stage bar the cell stage is a joke. The creature stage is like a WoW grind quest that lasts for hours and hours and hours. The tribal stage has no depth whatsoever and the Civ stage is similar.
If you want to play a game, don't buy Spore. If you want to design fun looking creatures, pirate it off the net. Whatever you do, don't pay the full price tag for it. It just isn't worth the cost.
The Space Stage is the best, you're right, but it also reaches a point at which you've done everything you can fairly quickly. After just a few hours, I had an empire which was producing spice of every colour at a rate of around 500-600/hour (which is completely useless, because they arbitrarily limit the amount of spice a planet can retain to 30 and the amount your ship can hold to 99). Once you've done that, there's no challenge to the game. You can just buy everything you'd ever need.
Every other stage bar the cell stage is a joke. The creature stage is like a WoW grind quest that lasts for hours and hours and hours. The tribal stage has no depth whatsoever and the Civ stage is similar.
If you want to play a game, don't buy Spore. If you want to design fun looking creatures, pirate it off the net. Whatever you do, don't pay the full price tag for it. It just isn't worth the cost.
I do agree with most of your points. About the space stage though, have you managed to defeat the brox and get to the centre of the universe and see the ending clip? I found the tribal and Civ stage a complete waste of my time. It was just way to simple.
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Re: Spore - The review.
I disagree with all the negative points actually. The game starts of simple, as one would expect then it progresses and gets more and more complicated, reflecting the stage of life. It is a fun, quirky little game and can proceed very quickly if you just skip through everything. Contrary to what has been said, there is a substantial level of depth. There are many challenges and little things to keep you busy; goals to meet, things to unlock. My favorite stages are the cell, creature and tribal but they do go quite fast in comparison to the space stage (which is HUGE mind). I disagree the space stage is easy and you just use money to buy everything, well yeah that's what it's for. The perspective changes though with the tribal and civ stages 3rd person but reverting back to 1st person space stage which is VERY challenging. I personally would highly recommend buying Spore (not for £45 mind; £25 off play.com)
EDIT: DRM is also not a problem (it is just made into one for some reason)
9/10
- room for improvement but definitely a great game, very worth buying!
Jesus this game is boring. Tribal stage is just murder, hoard food, murder those who try to steal, amass bigger army, repeat. So boring, and completely lacking in the depth that was promised 3 years ago.
Out of interest does anyone know any games similar to the space stage? (Which i really like apart from some glaringly obvious flaws, such as you being the only competent person in the entire galaxy that everyone relies on )Something where you actually have a choice between focusing on fighting or focusing on diplomacy/economics?
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Re: Spore - The review.
Originally Posted by Candescence
Out of interest does anyone know any games similar to the space stage? (Which i really like apart from some glaringly obvious flaws, such as you being the only competent person in the entire galaxy that everyone relies on )SOmething where you actually have a choice between focusing on fighting or focusing on diplomacy/economics?
Apparently the depth seen in the video chiefyk posted is going to be progressively rolled out with expansion packs. ****ing EA and their ****ty marketing strategies
Not really enjoying the Tribal stage too much. Too dragged out and slow. Ergh. And then I almost destroy the opposing tribe and a third one comes out of nowhere and owns me. LOL.
Oh, and I saved, thinking I was fine, ready to attack the greens, and hit save. Then I checked back and my town had 100 health left, so now I die each time and it just reloads this horrible state of affairs. So yeah, I'm screwed now.
PC and console games, online gaming, CS clans and minesweeper.
Spore - The review.
)Something where you actually have a choice between focusing on fighting or focusing on diplomacy/economics?
