Spore me out at the end. Great ideas but bad execution.
The wildly publicised copyright DRM battleground game Spore is something I’ve been playing heavily for the past week. Overall I’ll lay into some bad but there is alot of good mixed in, but it will take too long to write out. I’ll say this is a must play for anyone who enjoys sim-type games and if they can somehow improve the balance of the levels through the expansions, Will Wrights original idea will turn out being a classic. Only time can tell.
Good Customization of your alien and buildings. The amount of customization you can do possibly surpasses the amount of fun you’ll have actually playing the game. You can mold your alien into ANY form you wish. Each body part – eyes,feed,hands can be adjusted to larger or smaller degrees or streched or shrunk. The same goes with buildings. It’s a 3d model creator at YOUR hands. Each stage of the game has it’s own brand fun and possible enjoyment. The first stage is the most memorable and shortest. You see your “level” or size of things and larger bacteria above you. I’ll show it in the screen. The art direction during this part is amazing.
Bad You take your little alien through 4 stages of growth with elements getting progressivley more complex at each stage. In theory this is awesome. In execution it’s less than and this is down to Quests. In the bacteria stage all you do is eat things. the next stage all you do is dance. the third is dancing again? and the 4th you go into the largest stage, space and do no dancing but instead collect 4 items, kill 5 things or talk to new species. Wait a second, is this World of Warcraft or Spore?
Ugly The balance of the game. The space stage is unbelievably longer than the bacteria. I’m talking 20 to 30 possible hours to a half hour. The reward for the latter part of the game is exponentially less than actually just going between your planets and selling spice that is mined by your colonies. Which is just endless grinding towards what? Upgrading your space ship? Is this Eve Online or Spore? I’ve had the game crash on me multiple times while leaving planets (and you can only save the game while off planet), leaving to alot of progress lost.
