Yeah, they had a bunch of good coverage, even a developer interview/feature. I'm gonna keep poking the GB guys until they do the same, they're like a few blocks away from Maxis headquarters, come on! ;)
Yeah, I was specifically planning on not getting the pre-order just to avoid those items, but in the end I pre-ordered anyway for various reasons. I just turned those pieces into details, as one of those guys mentioned. They are OP items at first but they're only viable for the first few worlds, and remember, you need to gear out at least 3 guys so it's not like you're JUST using your pre-order items.
TotalBiscuit put out a "WTF IS Darkspore?" video during the beta that was pretty good, but he didn't get very deep into the game and was only solo play, which is sorta dull to watch.
Now that the game has released he's put out a really good co-op video. He does a great job of showing off a lot of the more interesting features like the Catalyst system, shared squad abilities, chaining, and act-4 bosses. It's a pretty great video to show off to other people to give them an idea of the game (in addition to Ryan's quick look, of course!). Check it out here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sp1A7MRSyvs&feature=player_embedded
" Its not like these are mmo's or something anyways you can play more then one at a time. "
That's a good point. Something that occurred to me recently is that even if Darkspore isn't as good as Diablo III's going to be, that's a year off. A year of development can do a lot for an online PC RPG these days. I wouldn't be surprised at all if by the time Diablo III came, Darkspore had improved enough that even though people pick up D3 and love it, they don't completely drop Darkspore, either.
The main reason it looked so slow & dull is because he was playing solo. This is a game meant for co-op, and it shows. If you have a proper four-man group going, you will of course be fighting four times as many enemies with four times as much crazy fireballs and shit all over the screen and things get way more hectic and fun. I guess the other thing is that the first hour or so of the game is quite easy as it eases you into the game, unlocking your abilities and such, but the pace goes way up from there. Death becomes a real possibilty even by the 3rd world if you're not careful or the wrong type of enemy spawns in, and as DonPixel said, each world ramps up the difficulty pretty signficantly from there on.
If the game looked mostly solid to you, but you're just worried about the pace, have no fears. Definitely pick it up. If you want to check out some of the later gameplay & co-op, check out this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w37d_49QbLY That guy has like the first several hours of the game if you want to take a look.
The biggest place the depth comes in is squad dynamics. One combo I really like is Viper & SRS-42. SRS-42's squad ability, Flak Cannon, doesn't do much damage, but it has a decent splash AoE radius, can be targeted on any enemy and just hit them directly without needing line of sight, has a cooldown of 1 second, and hardly takes up any power. Viper's passive gives him a high chance to poison an enemy any time he attacks. What this all adds up to is that if you play as Viper with SRS in your squad, you can spam Flak Cannon onto any enemy on the screen and very, very quickly poison every one of them. :D It's great to finish off the straggler's from his contagion ability.
Personally I found the mission objectives help keep things fresh, since it's really important to grab them. I hope you at least gave co-op a chance, since solo's quite a bit less interesting.
I've heard that complaint about seeing the items from Spore in the game in the game before, but I can't agree with it. The other option would be the not include the old parts that are already made, and that just seems like a waste. Don't worry, there are tons of new items made specifically for this game, including all of the weapons. Shame you didn't like it.
I do kind of agree that this game would feel better at $30-$40. However, if you consider that it has dedicated online servers and some really good online services - with no monthly fees - I think that's worth another $10-$20 and it rounds out the price.
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