I picked up Spore yesterday, and spent a great deal of time with it Sunday. It's seriously fun. Very light-hearted and easy to play, each game mode offers a little twist on the central game mechanic -- playing with the best creation tool set yet.
The cell stage is very simple, eat or be eaten. The style of the game is immediately presented, soft colors and cute monsters that you gape at while simultaneously running from. Collect the bits of ruined creatures to gain access to new parts, such as jets or pointy bits to defend yourself. The choices you make and the game you play here echo throughout your species by defining the type of game you're best at -- social, warfare, or a combination of both.
Leaping onto the land as a goofy, bug-eyed lizard, I started life with a handful of others of my species in the creature stage. The exploration gets even more enjoyable as you encounter other species which you may befriend or destroy as you see fit. My herbivorous nature lent itself to social interactions, as I sang, danced, charmed, and posed my way to many friends around my colorful continent. Similar to the cell stage, the more DNA points you collect, the more you develop, allowing a more-complex creature as well as a larger brain. Filling up the development bar allows graduation to the tribal stage.
The hallmarks of tribal involve the use of tools and a funny homage to 2001: Space Odyssey. Your chief gathers everyone together and proclaims the start of social structures, and you commence your dominion over other tribes. Here you cease developing your creature and instead add costuming that affects your social, combat, or economic statistics. You may gain the favor of other tribes by gifting them with food or playing instruments to please them. Make them happy and you ally with them, or give up on making them happy and crush their tribe beneath your boot. The game here plays like a simple RTS where the only resource is food. Conquer or make friends with each other village and you no longer have competition, paving the way for cities, and the civilization stage.
Civilization is perhaps the most fun for anyone who enjoys the creative elements of this game. You now have the ability to create first your epic Town Hall, as well as all the other vehicles and buildings that make up your burgeoning city. I had so much fun creating the aircraft and ships of my own design, as each part is now available right from the start, unlike the creature stage where you have to unlock things. Create vehicles with which to do war or, as was my case, convert heathen cities to your way of thinking through religious conversion. In the simple RTS action, you collect spice from geysers (Thanks Frank Herbert!) and spend those sporebucks for buildings or more machines. After conquering all cities on your world, you enter a new stage -- Space!
I was not prepared for the epic scale of space. I've played Sins of a Solar Empire, Galactic Civilizations, and their ilk. This game is like none other. When you zoom out to the galactic view and watch your home star disappear into a field of thousands of other points of light, all visitable and filled with wondrous creations of possibly your own from past games or other online users... This chapter of Spore blows all the other previous away with its scope, customizability, and wonder.
I attempted to build my spaceship in the form of an Imperial-Class Star Destroyer. While there are plenty of components available to do so, I wondered if anyone had already tackled the problem. I loaded up the Sporepedia and after a quick text-string search for "star destroyer" I found several promising prospects. I picked my favorite and downloaded it, inserted into my game, and I was off.
There are all sorts of things to do in Space mode, besides exploring the nearly never-ending sea of stars. Primarily you have your ship, and can outfit it with all sorts of upgrades: new weapons, better drives, health, and energy storage, bigger cargo bays, and more. Missions are also offered, both from your home world and its colonies, as well as from other space-faring species. Oh, did I mention you establish colonies and meet other space-faring species? You can plop down new cities for your species, and even terraform those planets so your buddies are more comfortable -- and profitable! With regards to other species, you can trade with them, get missions from them, and of course war with them if you are so inclined -- in my game, I found it much more profitable to sell them spice (Thanks again, Frank Herbert!) or perform missions for them to get them on my good side.
The missions have all been interested as well. One found me disposing of shameful wrecks of failed battles for a particularly proud war-loving race. By removing their fallen wrecks, I both helped restore their pride and sold them for profit! Other missions found me eradicating diseased creatures on planets, harvesting helpful plants, and establishing trade routes.
Space can be a little hard to manage -- all the stars kind of jam together in your mind. Helpfully, there are filters that allow you to see where you've been, what systems relate to missions, and so on. Still, I'm unable to find some places where I need to go, specifically when it's a secondary part of an optional mission. But I'm still learning.
My impression of Spore has been overwhelmingly good. I've enjoyed every minute of the six hours I've played up to the Space stage, and that's barely half the game. The wealth of personal and extra-player created content makes replayability worthwhile, and achievements for different play styles reward the examination of all sorts of behaviors within the game. This is a game I will be enjoying for some time.
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