Spore Review

by Andrew Kao on January 12th, 2009 at 7:05 pm EDT - 1,099 views

I played Spore a while back, however being loaded on Red Bull combined with being absent-minded, only now I remember to bring you the review on Spore to gamers out there.

Spore, developed by Maxis and published by the colossus EA Games, is first and foremost a god game. Having received so much hype that one would be led to believe that that it was a fourth installment of Halo. The developer’s name, Will Wright, is somewhat of a household name in the gaming industry, having brought you the extremely popular Sims series, with the third one coming soon, now decides to expand player freedom and customization from a household, to an entire make-up of evolution history.

Spore isn’t really one large game, but more or less several games stitched and patched together like something out of Frankenstein… a very sleek and refined Frankenstein that is. Basically, you take control of the destiny of a species and guide it through evolution from a small cellular organism to eventually a technological power of the galaxy. The cellular stage plays as an old arcade of eat the dots, while prevent from being eaten, it moves to an rpg-like feel with you eventually taking control of a more evolved creature, eating, avoid being eaten, and mating (in a rather, very…very bizarre fashion). You eventually move to the tribal and civilization stage where it feels like an rts, gather resources, and attack your enemy. Then the game moves to space mode, where it’s a mix of politics, environmental experiments, and use of very large guns. (Further proof, that there is a conspiracy out there to educate us in the ways of totalitarianism).

If you take each aspect of stage of the game, such as tribal mode, the gameplay aspect isn’t really original. The tribal mode acts as an RTS kind of game play, however it’s shallow. Each stage takes a certain game genre and strips it to its bare bones. The controls basic, the strategy involved, but limited. Many other games have done the same thing in the past and have done it much better. However, although it may seem like I am ranting on Spore (A reviewers career killer, I know), I am not. Although each of Spore’s stages do seem limited in terms of gameplay, it is not just one stage I’m judging. Spore manages to take many different genres and crunch them together. Surprisingly it fits like a puzzle with a few pieces missing. Overall the game is fairly complete.

The game really shines in its customization features. With a variety of customization features, one can easily spend hours making some strange Darkmushashi looking spiky haired chipmunk with fifty-five legs. Yet still, amazingly, it can still run just as easily as if it were a monkey wearing tennis shoes. Not only is customization with a species unique and varied, but it also extends to houses, ships, weapons, shirts, spaceships, shoes, spears, walls, tanks, planes, cannons, hats, helmets, mustaches, ray-guns, robotic flowers, cybernetic gadgets, the local hospital, and the kitchen sink (I know I’m making a few up). However, the sheer quantity of what you can customize and how you can customize can give even cold-calmed Putin a heart attack (The US should look into this new shock and awe weapon).

The main objective is to get to the center of the universe by either conquering the way through, colonizing the way through, or doing the cheap method and just fly there. Happily repairing your spaceship as you go. A very large alien empire controlled by aliens known as the Grox (a representation of what purple frogs could evolve to be) that were once humans  is what stands in your way. Other than that, there is no real depth to the story. You make alliances, you break alliances, you exploit alliances, it’s as simple as that. Even when you get to the end and get some strange device to instantly create life in a matter of seconds (better than god could do in his seven days), the game loses it’s larger goal and becomes a tad mundane. However, it is nice that the game allows a player to go back to various stages of your civilization and take a different course to either do better or fail even more miserably.

Now onto the short and simple lists for those who did not want to read the above.

Good Points about Spore

• • • • • Large number of customization options keeps the playability up.
        • Light, hum0rous, and entertaining.
        • Takes many genres and puts it together well to create an overall unique experience.
        • User-friendly (sometimes too friendly). A relatively small learning curve.
        • Extremely large galaxy to explore.

Bad Points about Spore

• Shallow gameplay that takes only the basic parts of different genres to create different stages of game.
• Non-engaging storyline.
• Game gets mundane a tad near the end of the game because in some cases it’s too easy.

Overall the game is fun. Mostly because of the customization features and the ease of use. However, the gameplay aspect is mostly just for looks and not really engaging, which also holds true for the storyline. Each stage, designed as a game genre, is lacking. When combined and looked at from a whole, it mixes them relatively well with one another. Do I recommend the game? Although, personally I did enjoy the time I spent trying to make a spore version of The Cat in the Hat, the gameplay isn’t engaging. However, the game is fun. Will Wright of Spore in my book is not the God of god games. To me he would be a duke of god games…..not a king…. a duke.

Source: Spore

– Game On