When i first learned of Mr Wright’s ambitious project, a few years ago in a blurry, Google video (before they bought YouTube), I was understandably excited.
Years later, Spore was released, and just the other day, I was able to finally pick it up and start playing.
I started up a new game, made my little carnivorous organism, and ate my way through to the top of the food chain. I enjoyed most every part of the game, and I’m still playing through the Space Age, and starting an occasional new creature now and again.
I thought it would be interesting to break down some items of this game that I like, and those I don’t like. Since this is *meant* to be a Blog about Worldcrafting and Game Design, it might be useful. At the very least, it’ll be fun, and give me an excuse to show off some of my creations :)
First, right out of the gate, the intro logo movie thing with the vortex of creature icons is just brilliant. I love it. I know it doesn’t seem like much, but since this intro is the first thing people will see when they get into the game, it is actually a very good opportunity to let the player know what they are getting into. So very many games out there simply show a logo for their company, or a short movie that has nothing to do with the game itself. What Spore does is shows the Maxis logo, and then in just a few seconds we see this vortex explode, and suck in all these screaming creatures, before showing the Spore logo. It shows that this game is going to have a LOT of stuff in it, and it’s going to be fun, and lighthearted. They also make use of the swirly symbol that is a staple of the game, so it brings a very quick glimpse to the player of what the game is.
Most of the interfaces are very simple, and utilize a similar style that gives it sort of a floating, dragging motion. While I like the effect a lot, I think it makes many of the interfaces a little bit too slow, or unresponsive. For example, if I want to move around and see a particular world, I click and drag around the ground, but it sort of eases into the movement, and then eases to a stop, very reminiscent of the Black & White interface. At times, I feel slightly hindered by this approach, almost like I’m moving through molasses.
I love the editors, especially the Creature editors. The only problem with them is that in some places during the game, you almost have to stop and spend some time coming up with a design for something. This was particularly noticeable in the Civilizations Age, where I had to stop and create 3 different kinds of buildings, and then several types of vehicles each time I captured another city. Occasionally, I felt like I wanted to get on with the action, so I just threw something together, which I regretted later on as I entered the Space Age, and my colonies all looked like crap. I went back and remade a couple of them later, but I still have the occasional “white cube with a cone on top” building, or “sphere with wheels” for some vehicles. I discovered a little later that you can pick from the buildings and things you’ve scanned, or others that you’ve made, but this also causes complications: if I pick out a cool building first for my city hall, I’ll have a hard time later on making something that matches it. Ultimately, it becomes a little bit overwhelming.
I’ve also noticed an obvious lack in the parts you can pick from for things… the Cell Stage seemed to have way too few parts to play with… perhaps this was by design, to keep from overwhelming players at the very start of the game, but it frightened me into thinking there wouldn’t be as many items later on. The later stages did have quite a few parts, but still not nearly as many as I had hoped there would be – plus you have to go out and find all of them in the 2nd Stage. Most likely there are tons of new parts in the expansion packs, but I don’t think I want to spend $30 on them…
I also dislike the pace in which the game moves. It seems like you’re in the Cell stage for only a very short time, before moving up to land (what happened to the underwater stage?), and then you’re on land for a short time before the tribe stage starts. I wanted to stick around as a land creature for longer, hoping to gain more DNA points, and make my creature really strong, but I clicked the button by accident to see my history and then I was rushed into the next stage. There seems like there is some stuff missing from the creature stage and it just seems rushed… for example, what is the point of the Rogue and Epic creatures? I love the fact that they’re there, but I don’t see the point. I killed a rogue creature, and I was able to charm another into joining my pack, which was great since he had twice as much health as anyone else, but as soon as I moved into Tribe mode, there really wasn’t any point… I believe that there is an achievement for defeating an Epic creature, but it seems like I would need to keep from advancing for a very, very long time before I could pull it off… and is it worth it? The part of the game that I was anticipating would be my favorite seems to be lacking the most, which bothers me a little. Also, the transitions between the stages are much more defined than they seemed to be in the original demo video… I very much liked the concept that I would start as a cell, and then move up in the world seamlessly – I would swim for as long as I wanted until I added legs, and then i can move onto land, and stay on land as long as I wanted until I built the right part to go into Tribe mode. The way it works now, there are very clearly defined boundaries between the stages, so once I fill up a bar, I click the button and there’s a short cinematic to show me moving to the next stage. This could have been to help players see what they’re supposed to be doing, but it detracts from the openness of the game.
So once I’m rushed through the first few stages of the game, I enter the capability for space flight, and the final stage starts – which is, I guess, intended to be the goal of the game: get to the space stage, and you can do anything you want! Only you can’t. They add a ton of possibilities for things you can do, but make it really hard to do them, or very easy, but pointless. For instance, if I want to just fly around and visit planets – I can, but every 2 minutes my home planet is getting attacked by pirates, or there’s some ecological disaster on a allied planet, and I have to stop what I’m doing and go take care of it. My initial mode of playing the Space age was to try and find as many other races, and ally with them. This plan has since been abandoned. I’m afraid of making new allies, because I know that as soon as I do, it will only increase the number of emergencies I’ll have to go deal with. I wish I could setup one or more of my colonies to fend for themselves, but short of buying an expensive item that I don’t have access to yet, and then putting one on each planet, I don’t see how to do it. I’ve pretty much stopped bothering to answer to calls when people ask me for help, because I’m usually much too far away, or in the middle of doing something else.
Then there’s the issue with them giving you tools to do stuff, but making it very pointless. I can spend a lot of time searching planets for artifacts or terraforming tools, the artifacts I can sell, and the terraforming tools I can use on planets to change their colors, or add lakes, rivers, mountains, etc… and I can spend all day doing this, but there’s no point. Except for earning some badges, terraforming has no real effect on the planet, or the planet’s population (unless I use the few tools aimed at actually changing the planet’s “T” score, affecting how much life it can sustain). If they added a measure that says race X prefers the types of terraforming tools that make gear designs, and I could go to their planet and make it have all these gears, and then they would be more friendly with me, that would be great. Instead, I can go to their planet, make it look however I want, and it makes no difference to them at all (unless I build a river through their city, destroying it in the process). So the novelty of finding and using these tools quickly wore off.
The space age itself is still pretty fun, although it can be pretty difficult, and it’s a little too open-ended for me… you’re supposed to get to the center of the galaxy, but there’s a race that defends it and is apparently very hard to deal with – I tried to become their allies, only to get attacked by a bunch of other races in the process, and then accidentally destroyed one of their ships, so now everyone hates me. I enjoy the quests in the space age, although some of them are a little tedious.
Ultimately, while I love the freedom, and the amount of stuff you can do, I wish there was just a little more direction. I love the graphic style, and most of the game play is pretty solid.
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