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The Landsharks Shall Inherit the, uh, Randomly Generated Planet
Published on September 7, 2008 By mittens In PC Gaming

After ending my very first Spore gaming session a few hours after I startedmany hours after I started I sat back and thought about what I just played. Spore isn't an easy game to classify so much as it is five different games to classify all wrapped in an incredibly polished, coherent content creation sandbox. At numerous moments in my session that took me from the very beginning of a new species up through the beginning of the fifth and final Space Stage I sat back and realized that I'm the only gamer in the world who will have taken a blue race that resembles land-sharks called the Asplodians through each stage of the game but, when I was done, I won't be the only gamer who has had the divine pleasure of seeing my little blue carnivores in a game world due to Maxis' endlessly intelligent and well-assembled online distribution of player-created content. If anyone wants to play with my beautiful little blue babies, add "mittense" to your Spore buddy list.

First, to anyone who has yet to play, I'd recommend doing what I did and getting as many friends' spore buddy names as possible before starting and then, optionally, disabling content from anyone outside your list. It's far more enjoyable for me to see a creature in the wild, click it, and see the name of a friend or coworker and silently judge that person based on their creation than it is for me to see a giant walking pair of tits from El337nubPWN3r. And there were a great many times where I was faced with skyscaper-tall "epic" instances of my friends' creations that picked up my baby blue dinosaur-shark hybrid, gnawed on him a bit, and then threw him into the ground and killed him -- such an instance has probably tainted my friendship with that person irrevocably.

The first stage, where you're a tiny little wormthing with chompers swimming about in a primordial ooze, is a surprisingly enjoyable fifteen-to-twenty minute game of lion-and-cat-and-mouse where the lions and mice get bigger with your player-controlled origin of an eventual species. It is during this period that a player can get accustomed to a simplified version of the Creature Creator that will power the stage following this introduction to the game. Going into Spore I assumed this stage would be the game's weak point but that's not even close to true. The cell phase is a rightfully short-lived blast and I'm looking forward to doing it again when I create my next species.

The creature-driven phase that follows this is best described as a mix of the Spore Creature Creator (can I use this retail subset of the game to describe this?) and World of Warcraft. The player takes his newly land-bound creature from its non-aquatic immaturity to its near-civilized phase throughout this hour-long battle for supremacy as the player bands with the rest of his species to eliminate the other new nests that populate the world. This stage is, hypothetically, about making new friends and enemies in a world and defining a species' eating habits in a learn-by-eating method of sustenance through plants (herbivore), other species (carnivore), or a mix of both (omnivore). Killing or befriending other species will increase your DNA bar (experience bar) and each major experience block gives your creature a larger brain with the final block setting off the light bulb in a creature's head that he can use sticks to roast marshmallows.

The third stage is a tribal stage which tasks, emphasis on the word task, the player with guiding anywhere from six to a dozen of his units towards tribal victory in a real-time strategy-lite game. The idea behind this phase is alright, what with all of the inter-tribal negotiations and/or warfare that yield an increased familiarity with tools as a means to slice people, gather food, and impress other species with but, much like the forthcoming fourth stage of the game, too little of tasks that the player has to deal with in this phase can be completed with very little thought or effort from the player. The only meaningful choice in this segment to be made is whether a player wants his species to progress to the next stage by killing all of the fellow tribes, impressing them with their culture and music, or, uh, a third option? The customization options given to the player in this phase are as hollow as the gameplay mechanics as the only things a player can do are to equip nine variations of "clothing" per each of the five clothing types (helmet/chest piece/shoulders/accessories/one other) to increase the tribe's proficiency in combat, gathering, and culture.

The fourth stage is the civilization phase that gives players access to city customization (city hall, factory, entertainment, houses) and various vehicles (land, air, and sea) to wage the same sorts of war as in the third stage on a bigger scale. This civilization stage is made far less tedious in that it not only makes players balance numerous cities, compared to the third stage's one-tribe-only management, but it also provides a wealth of, admittedly shallow, content creation segments for each of the vehicles and buildings. There are also super-abilities of types that depend on the species a player has created over the preceding stages (warfare, culture, and that pesky third thing I can't remember since I killed everything I came in contact with). I used a nuke at the end of the stage and won which, really, is the best way to win. The biggest disappointment in this section is the really shoddy implementation of the vehicle creation compared to every other aspect of the game; a player can deck out a vehicle with weapons and thrusters and feet and all that jazz but, when it comes to actually utilizing it, the unit just moves and attacks with a generic animation. I can't even express my disappointment that my Asplodius Puppius walker land vehicle didn't use his head-mounted missiles to blow things up. I almost cried. Then I realized I had a landshark in the cockpit (or so I imagined) and that made it better.

I was told by all of my non-US friends, since we were one of the last countries to get access to the game, that the Space Stage is where a majority of the game time will be spent and now that I've reached it I can see why. The player gets access to an interstellar spaceship and is given a variety of missions, quests, and a very, very large map to explore in what has been described to me as a sort of 4X (explore, expand, exploit, and exterminate) game. I've only gotten about an hour in to this stage but, thus far, I've gotten missions to meet new alien life form, establish trade routes, and terraform planets. What I didn't realize was, when terraforming, I can't just throw the species in my cargo hold to the ground of the planet or they die. So, uh, yeah. Now I'm going back to my home planet and "borrowing" some species to populate this alien world.

At this point, I can safely say that my expectations for the game were met and exceeded on almost every level. For every fault the game has, like the stupid vehicle creation limitations and the yawn-casuing tribal stage, there are a dozen other game mechanics that aren't only fun but contain their own metagames for a player to discover. And every aspect of the game is archived and categorized in one of the most important game mechanics I've ever seen: The Sporepedia (below). Now, back to my interstellar landsharks.


Comments (Page 4)
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on Sep 10, 2008

I know it's not the best strategy game, but you have to consider that this wasn't made to be as deep as Civ or Galciv is during the Civ phase

 

Not at all true.  The original working title for Spore was "SimEverything."  It was not only meant to be deeper, but pretty much as deep as deep can be.  I'm sure Will is pretty disappointed too.  This was not the dream he dreamed, and you can be sure that it was freaking bean counters at the bottom of why.

on Sep 10, 2008

As I realised from a poster on the Spore forums, one of the big downsides of the Space phase (apart from many ignored obvious features that will probably be used as expansion material) is the fact the AI does not play with the same rules as you do.

The AI are given capabilities that the player does not have access to, namely the ability to command multiple fleets.

Everytime I start playing the Space phase, I quickly get bored/annoyed and just get the desires to play Gal Civ II instead.

on Sep 10, 2008

First off, thanks for being so kind in your response psychoak, I love sarcasm when I am bringing up another side of the argument, really makes my day.

 

Not to pick on ya Jenkas, but can you see anything wrong with this sentence?

on Sep 10, 2008

OckhamsRazor

First off, thanks for being so kind in your response psychoak, I love sarcasm when I am bringing up another side of the argument, really makes my day.
 

Not to pick on ya Jenkas, but can you see anything wrong with this sentence?

I don't see anything ironic with the sentence...... did I say ironic, I meant wrong.

But I do have to say that I am alittle disappointed with Spore. I felt that the earlier stages were more fun, and the later phases didn't really have the same level of polish. Hopefully they fix some of the major issues in either a patch, which will probably never happen, or an expansion that will come out next year. And seeing as it is Mr. Wright, we will probably see about 50 expansions before we see a second one

on Sep 11, 2008

pndrev

If you want a game that is nigh impossible to win, try a few Angabdn variants. I have, and they are fun, always being on the verge of loosing, constantly fighting the odds.

I second that, try out some Angband variants. My personal favorite is NPPAngband, but it seems like the dev's site is down for the moment.

on Sep 11, 2008

The concept that The Sims and Spore are purely for casual players is a ridiculous misnomer.

Regarding Spore in a recent MTV interview, Will Wright himself said this:

When I talked to Wright, I had played deep into the Space Stage, which I was enjoying. But I had seen complaints from hardcore game reviewers and message board posters that all of the stages have less complex gameplay than many gamers had hoped. As wonderful as the content creation and sharing options are, the one consistent complaint I’ve seen is that the gameplay seems to have been “dumbed down” for the sake of appealing to a more casual audience. Was it?

“I’d say that’s quite accurate,” Wright told me. “We were very focused, if anything, on making a game for more casual players. “Spore” has more depth than, let’s say, “The Sims” did. But we looked at the Metacritic scores for “Sims 2″, which was around 90, and something like “Half-Life“, which was 97, and we decided — quite a while back — that we would rather have the Metacritic and sales of “Sims 2″ than the Metacritic and sales of “Half-Life.”

And one way of getting there is to present a narrower range of options than a hardcore player might be expecting?

“Yes,” he said. “Part of this, in some sense was: can we teach a “Sims” player to play an RTS [or Real Time Strategy game]? … I think the complexity we ended up with was toward that group.”

In other words, Spore is primarily geared towards mass appeal rather than gameplay quality. And, personally, I'm rather glad I've never played The Sims if Spore is the deeper game. I'm also not thrilled at their finance model, apparently similar to The Sims, which is expansion- and micropayment-based. This from EA CEO John Riccitiello:

"We've got a clear, obvious and very compelling post-launch monetization opportunity," Ricitello explained during a conference call. "This is a game where basically, the parts are what make the sum of the product work.

"Monetization opportunity" sounds so delightfully greedy. Translated from SuitSpeak: the product is intentionally missing parts, so they can be sold to the customers later. So, it can be expected that Spore will get some of the sorely needed depth... in a few years, after shelling out a couple hundred bucks in expansions and micropayments. Seriously, is this the kind of model for computer gaming that people want to support?

Finally, closing off with a personal opinion of Spore:

----

Cell Stage (2D "shoot-em-up")

+ "Charming"
+ Entertaining
+ Easy to play
+ Suitably short for its simplicity
- Too Simple

Creature Stage (3D action game)

+ Some Charm still left
+ Occasionally entertaining
- Repetitive
- Shallow

Tribal stage (RTS)

- Repetitive
- Shallow
- Charm is gone (zoomed-out view, outfit customization is laughable)
- Insufficient controls (no control groups?!)

Civilization stage (RTS)

- Repetitive
- Shallow
- Charm is gone (zoomed-out view)
- Insufficient controls (no control groups)
- Some balance problems

Space stage (Action 4X)


+ Some charm is back (you get to deal with funky aliens and play around with lesser lifeforms)
+ More depth than other stages
- Somewhat repetitive
- Insufficient information (it's a race against other Civs, but your situation is difficult to ascertain)
- AI uses different rules! (compounds with the insufficient information problem)
- Badly paced (it's slow, and you might spend a lot of time in a bad position without knowing it)
- Lack of automation
- Control scheme uses different conventions than Creature Stage

Also, one thing that somewhat bothered me is that there's no evolutionary connection between creature generations. A tiny slug can become a four-armed flying dinosaur in one generation, which feels a bit silly. There's also no real connection with form and function; for example, I made a little pink blob-thing with full scores in all combat abilities and no visible protuberances.

That said, yes, the editors are quite powerful and easy to use. The editors and systems for sharing content are the main draws of this software toy (not game IMO), but even those suffer from the detached perspective of the latter stages.

----

on Sep 11, 2008

Spot on Crandaeolon.  I was not going to get Spore because of the DRM.  My sister got it for my neice (13 years old) last Sunday, and they could'nt get it to work on their computer.  They ask to play it on mine (how can you say no to a pleading neice).  So we installed it (That's two of the three installs right there), and we played it Sunday, and after work/school this week to.

Just 4 days of two people playing, and we are both already to the Space age. 

Cell stage (1st) was great, but only takes about 20-30 mins. 

Creature stage looks great; funny/adorable animations, but there are basically only 2 things to do when you meet other species (they stay at their "nests", and you have to go around to interact with them).  You can kill them, or befriend them.  That's it.  To kill them, hit your attack button over and over.  To befriend them, play a game of "simon says" with them; press the 1-4 keys to mimic their 4 possible moves.  That's it.  What's the strategy to getting new genetic parts?  Wandering around looking for them in randomly placed bone-piles.  That's it.

Tribal stage, again, adorable, 1 resourse, and a RTS like game that's like share-ware several years old.  We both finished it in under 45 minutes.

Civ stage, again great graphics/animations, 1 resourse, 3 units total, 3 buildings total, and another RTS like share-ware game.  We both won it, easily, in about an hour+.

We are both in Space stage now, and both keep hoping it gets better somehow, some way.  I have NO desire to replay this game (ever), and my neice looked like she was eating brussle sprouts the last time she played. 

So an adult strat-game player, and a creative little girl who love's her Nintendo both did not like this game.  It gave us a few laughs and smiles, but we were can get that by watching a sit-com.  We were hoping for a "game".  It looks great, is very short, and very simple, and can get very repetative fast.  It had great posibilities though. . .

 

 

 

on Sep 11, 2008

"We've got a clear, obvious and very compelling post-launch monetization opportunity," Ricitello explained during a conference call. "This is a game where basically, the parts are what make the sum of the product work.

Now this pisses me off more than any DRM. People who know and care *nothing* about games and gaming dictating terms and pulling strings for the sake of extra profit. I for one will adamantly boycott their "monetization opportunities" in the future. I have better things to do with my money than to give it to them for "episodic content", for example I can go and buy something that is actually a complete product.

on Sep 12, 2008

Jenkas, while replying to my post try not to confuse me with the rest of the world.

 

Sarcastic asshole I may be, but you asked why people were bitching about Spore and hadn't for the previous two, and I explained exactly why.  In all the sarcastic glory I could manage without trying.  I have to do something to negate the horrors of life.  It's either make fun of the issue, or pretend a PC game is important and break down sobbing.  It could be worse, I'm prone to being a pedantic fuck too.

 

I said dick about shallow Spore gameplay though.  Haven't played it, not interested in being Spored* by the activation limit.  You have me mistaken for some other prick in your response.

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