There are gonna be two types of people who are going to read this. The first are going to know what Spore is, so if you want to know my opinions, come and ask me, but it's the second group who rarely, if ever, play a computer game that this article is for because that is who the game is aimed at.
Spore is a simulation that could possibly double for several chapters of the national ciriculum. Its a game where you guide your player created species through the five stages of Spore evolution; soup, creature, tribal, civilisation and finally, space. Coupled with most of the stages are editors the allow you to design your creature and some of its houses, cars and clothes. The early stages in the primordial soup, and later, the creature stage are cute and endearing but boil down to collection and the repeation of a narrow range of actions. The consistant repeating lets the game down, even in the later and broader, space stage. However they serve as an plesant entry to the game, paced much around 20Mph in a 30Mph zone.
A Kordita & Family
Stages three and four involve moving your much loved creatures to employ violence, or the power of religion and occasionally music to win over your neighbours. The space stage has you in a trading empire to ally, conquer or buy out your fellow space species.
Have I bored you yet. Suspect so. Spore is a computer game but crucially it is a simulation which means that it owes more to its source material and gengre than normal computer games rules. Spore, on the other hand, has tried to incorporate normal computer gamer achetypes, collect, build, kill etc, and wraped then around year 8 science.
At the core of Spore are two things, its ability to let you create your own creature and follow them as the develop through the five stages and the its concept of evolution that links the experiance together. Keeping with evoltuiton, Spore encourages you to collect items that serve as body parts that can then be added to your creature. Extra eyes, legs, arms and heads can all be placed but the game encourages sensible rules. More teeth and claws lead to a better carnivore where as the ability to sneak is useful for herbivore. Not very complicated or deep but it stops the player making obviously stupid looking animals. Sadly the game lacks any real flying or swimming animals but I expect the former to be included in expansion pack.
So is it fun? Well yes it is. For a regular gamer all the gameplay elements are limited and unoriginal, but the newcomer will probably appriciate the straight forward nature of progressing throught the game. The real joy with Spore is creating your creatures and letting them loose on your galaxy and in other people's.
How?
-Hair Ad moment alert!-
Spore allows you to creature your creature and upload it to Spore.com. When you get to the Space stage of Spore you are in a galaxy with several thousand planets, some with animals. Where do all those different animals come from? They are all copies of other people's creations. As you play the game it quietly downloads them from the web or you can check out the massive selection and find something suitibly wacky or tasteless from the massive database. Somewhere, someone is trying to befriend, bribe or extermiate my dear Jaksters or Korditas.
The possibilties of the editors are endless
In fact the game even updates you if someone else encounters one of your creations and commits genocide for example. It means nothing for your game but nevertheless it induces a 'you b'stard' every time you check. (Takamax - I know who you are!)
Spore's space stage revels the masterplan. Each planet can be coloured and shaped as you desire. It can be populated by the plants you choose and the animals you download or abduct. As there are millions of creatures available, the galaxy can be designed as you want it.
Spore tries to tell a story with your creature at its centre and it does this with stylish graphics and groundbreaking animation but is it fun? Yes, but mostly in proportion to how much you care about your creature.
Scoring:
Normally the five elements would add up to a 6 at best. Saying that, the animation and editors are groundbreaking and the great take on the evolution theme can't be ignored. Coupled with Spore.com always providing new creatures, buildings and vehicles, Spores scores a:
8.2/10
Verdict: Good, but not Godlike
Summary: Graphics from Pixar, Gameplay from the Learning Channel.
