Spore (PC)

A good evolution theory that puts you at the very beginning of life itself. I recommend Spore for the PC, its not a great deal of depth in terms of unites and very basic command and play this game is definitely not a civilisation series... more like CIV for a three year old.

Although this isn't 100% what I expected, you could argue, what the heck was I expecting! It's a game! For kids! Just look at the artwork... but I find myself enjoying it, it is easy, and a bit too childlike and frustrating, but I really do believe, with my hands I've created real creatures! That are alive! Really! They are alive!

Shhhh they are!

Well its finally here. After waiting for what seems to be forever, spore has finally hit the shelves across the world. But, I'm sitting here and I cant help but feel a little, well disappointed. I mean spore is good. Its more than good. It is the perfect game (or rather the concept is), its gorgeous, its fun. Its mind blowing at parts. But its also over hyped.

The first stage is probably my favorite. Its like a good version of pacman, but with better visuals and a cooler concept. By either being a carnivore, or a herbivore, you collect food that matches what kind of grub your little man fancies. So if your a carrot muncher, heading for the algae like plants growing around the tide pool is the way forward. If you prefer to munch on rabbits rather than carrots, going round gobbling up smaller creatures is the way forward for the carnivorous ones. Once you take out some of the larger creatures in the water, collecting the body parts lets you call a mate, and after getting' jiggy with it, takes you into the creature creator. This is really easy to use, and basically gives you full control over the way your creature looks and behaves. You can also change your creatures food type, so if your bored of eating plants by now, you can easily make the change and go for something a bit more "grr". After collecting enough food and such, your creature will develop legs and hit the land! The creature stage goes a bit like this; Stay alive. Eat. Dance/kill. Stay alive. Eat. A common element of spores game play. After your new group of buddies hit land, you have to go around to neighboring creature clans, and either make friends by dancing, singing and other such ways, or potently just eat them. Its more fun and well less tedious. When your clan becomes superior to the other creatures dotted around, you begin to develop a brain, and with this honor, you get to build a pack. Your allies can then join you and help you take over the world! Or just dance all over it. Either way you'll begin to progress a bigger brain and then a bigger clan etc etc etc. The annoying thing i hate about the creature phrase is, your clan has a habit of migrating half way across the universe, and you alone have to treck all the way there. It wouldn't be that bad if it wasn't for hostile creatures blocking the path. Normally resulting in multiple failed attempts and another lap around the planet. The creature editor is still awesome in this stage, but its the last time you can actually edit your creatures, and after this the game looses the connection you have with your single life form. And now we reach the tribal age. This plays out different to the rest of the previous games, you now hunt your food, build huts and control a group of your creatures. By making friends with other tribes by playing music to them, you progress to unlock new stuff. Again, the options there to either kill or make friends with. At this point in the game, these choices can and will effect how other creatures later in the game perceive you. The creature creator options still here, but now instead of developing your creatures physical attributes, you get to give them tribal masks and body wear. When your tribe gets big enough, you reach the civilization stage. A bit like the tribal stage, but now you control a whole city. Its a fun stage, but way way way simplified. Theres not enough options to keep this enjoyable, and it soon becomes repetitive. Again, you can either bribe other cities with gifts, or just take them over will power. This time, you get to create your own buildings, tanks, boats and planes. Its awesome to see your inventions flying and shooting about. Once you control the map, you reach the worst part of the game. Its actually such an anti climax. The space stage. Its so so so disappointing, i think i cried a little. But its mostly down to annoying glitches. The game has a habit of freezing. Lots. And it gets annoying fast. Apart from that, its just not that enjoyable. You complete missions, earn badges and do up your new UFO type space ship, and you repeat until you reach the center of the universe. Missions include scanning stuff. Beaming up stuff. Blowing up stuff. Selling stuff. Other boring stuff. Boring boring boring . Its fun for a while, but theres not enough there to keep it interesting, it needs more. Theres plenty of options to progress your fighter, developing new weaponry, cool items, but again its just too simple.

By the time you reach the space age spore leave you feeling like theres something missing. And thats because there is. Its missing that spark. That glimmer in the eye when the first videos and pictures of this emerged to the surface. Its like they showed us something so original and brilliant and then gave us its younger brother. It feels like it needed more time to be developed. Its a game thats aimed at everyone, but in doing that, they've lost the depth and game play values that wont be able to keep many people interested for very long. I don't dislike spore. Its one of the best games I've played in such a long time. I like that, no matter what your age. You can pick up spore and play and you can have a really fun time. It has its flaws, but its still a game that deserves recognistion. I for one cant wait for patches to be released and future expansions, i think with a tiny bit of work, this game can be something that it should have been in the first place. Magical.

Spore,

Part 1 Cell> The introduction to spore and it's world of evolution. This section is the most well thought out and very addictive, you collect red orbs (or green if you are a veggie) to 'level up 'each time you gain a level you get larger and can equip more complex equipment. The graphics even on my PC are stupendous, the pallet used to describe the fantastic models created by the mind of some twisted genius come to life in front of your eyes. Nothing can describe the feeling you get when all of a sudden half the screen is taken up by the slathering mouth of some monstrous beast, thankfully death is not a major hurdle as you just re-spawn at the last 'level up'. Unfortunately this section is brief and took me 30 mins at most to complete.

Part 2 is basically exactly the same as the cell stage but on land, instead of getting larger you get more intelligent. This facilitates equipping more complex skills like the ingeniously named bite level 4, leet.

Part 3, I'm going to call this part, Civilisation for idiots and leave it at that.

Part 4 space the Dull frontier. I've played this part for at least 4 hours and achieved nothing much. Although fun this part is frustrating, for-instance: in order to make money you need to personally transport different colours of spice to outlying regions of your colony or other alien worlds. Why isn't this automated even when you make a trade route, I have no idea? Furthermore the mission granted by Allies and enemies alike are repetitive and have no concentric. I also found myself being attacked almost every time I found something interesting to do, which left me with the option of traipsing all the way back to protect my planets or loosing them. Not much of an option really.

Whilst I fully admit with time this game could be amazing for me right now it only scores a 7/10.