Spore falls a little short
of its promise at every stage, but bear in mind that its concept is as close as we've come to a game incarnation of the Lord our God. It's a game about evolving a lifeform from an amoeba up to the point at which
it develops space travel, journeys to the centre of the galaxy and discovers the secrets of the universe. It's loftier than Jean-Paul Sartre discussing metaphysics with
a cloud.
It's also simple, cute and fun. Spore turns every phase of that journey - cell, creature, tribe, civilisation and space - into a caricatured minigame, and the principles of survival into game mechanics. At every stage there are things weaker than you, and things that are stronger than you. Things you can attack, flee from or befriend.
Those 'things' are the soul of Spore. It's a singleplayer game, but the world you play in is filled with creatures and objects other people have made. The actual business of attacking, fleeing and befriending varies from crude to decent - it's the lifeforms you're doing these things with that make Spore so sublime.
During my first time through the Tribe stage, I came across a 150-foot-tall chair. It was beautifully crafted, with a feather motif inlaid in its back, and it was walking. Loudly. I was hoping the chair would attack another tribe's village at some point. I never dared to hope it would be a village full of old men in wheelchairs. The wheelchair is actually part of these creatures, modelled by a user called theWOODman after his 'Crazy Old Grandpa'.
I think I actually cried laughing at the ensuing battle. The epic chair had to buckle its legs and seat to stoop down and nudge the wheelchair men with its giant knee, while they wheeled around their campfire and chucked spears at it. Eventually, the gargantuan chair had enough and hobbled off, full of spears. The Crazy Old Grandpa tribe celebrated. Spore was an attempt to leverage the quantity of content players will create, but it's ended up being a testament to the quality.
Maxis, I mean this as the highest possible compliment of your game, but next to your player's creatures your own stuff is pathetic. I actually tried to ban you from my game to make way for better things, but apparently that's not allowed. So your creatures remain the wallflowers among an ecosystem of gasp-inducing works of art, fascinating abominations, and big fat cocks.
Actually Maxis have done an impressive job pruning the obscenities from the online repository of shared creations that the game draws from. But happily, you'll still encounter disgusting things. One of the most talented creature creators out there, ststeel, has a fetish for mutilated naked zombie women who crawl along on their hands, gaping sores on their dangling breasts. Subscribe to his stuff for the pretty mice-people, stay for the undead porn.
Of course, one creature is impressive, fascinating and grotesquely adorable for an entirely different reason: you made it. I don't know you personally, but I'm going to insult you and say that the cells, creatures, vehicles, buildings and spaceships you make will not be quite as artfully or painstakingly crafted as the best that crop up in your game. But you will love them more, as I do mine, and delight to watch them smash the prettier and better-made ones.
These two factors - the brilliance of everyone else's creations, and your affection for your own - have varying relevance at each stage of the game. What's slightly frustrating is that the stages with the most interesting mechanics aren't the ones that let you see these magnificent bastards up close and personal. Those ones are functionally very basic, but any time these monsters fill the screen, nothing else matters.
Holy shit, look at that thing! Christ, is that a flock of living sniper rifles? Oh my God, look at them trying to eat. Fuck, Big Daddies! Run! Er, should the ball of fish mouths really be walking? And 200 feet tall? Wait, it that Magtheridon from Warcraft? It is! And he's flying! They're all flying! And a UFO is abducting one of them mid-air! What a dick!
Long before I finished Spore, I'd learnt to suppress the urge to call everyone over each time something astonishing happened on my screen. It became a given that sublime nonsensical brilliance was happening at all times.
But there's been a burning question about the game ever since Will Wright announced it in an enormously in‑depth talk at GDC 2005. Is it really a game, or is it just a toy? Do you play it, or play with it?
The answer, predictably, is long and complicated. The Cell stage is an elegant blend of toy and game. The Creature stage is an awkward conflict between game and toy. The Tribe stage is all game and no toy. The Civ stage is all toy and not enough game. And the Space stage is a huge game, sprinkled with lots of little toys in case you get bored.
That part I didn't expect. When I think back to how I imagined Spore, my vision seems small and brief compared to the real thing. Over half the game is an epic, dizzying empire-building game among the stars. But I'll get back to that. I'm aware that my run-down of the stages just now wasn't big on specifics, so I'll go through them in order.
Cell stage is a surprise gem. It might seem tangential to the proceedings, being two-dimensional and visually unlike the other stages, but it's actually the smartest combination of Spore's creative and game elements. You're just a blob with a mouth, scarfing plant parts or animal parts depending on the type of craw you've picked. But when you evolve that blob, by reproducing and adding parts you've found to your offspring, your choices really matter.
Combat is physics based: there are no attack moves, but if someone bumps into your spiky bits, it's going to hurt them more than it hurts you. So choosing where each feeler, proboscis and weapon goes is great fun. More than at any other stage, there's always a bigger fish in Cell. Sometimes it's a bigger fish by a factor of ten. I've bumped into things whose eyes take up more than half the screen. So even if you're a nice-guy herbivore content to nibble on algae, you need some weaponry.
The highlight for me was finding a semi-rare proboscis that would allow me to eat both plants and other creatures. Hilariously, my cell simply attempted to drink other creatures alive, making loud milkshake-sucking noises as he did so. The fish-monsters that fell foul of my deathstraw opened their eyes wide in alarm when they felt the sucker attach, then looked nervously back at me as they attempted to wriggle free of its suction, until at last they perished. Genius.
Once your creature climbs ashore, the Creature stage starts. Appallingly, there's no way to import any of the creatures you've already made in the Creature Creator, or any of the two and a half million already out there. You'll meet them as other races, but you can't play as them until you reach the Tribal stage: at which point they're just interchangable little peons beneath you, and the personal connection is lost.
A bigger problem with the way you create your creature is having to choose between parts that look right, and parts that have good stats. You just can't survive as a carnivore without Bite level three or four, nor befriend the later herds without Sing at a similar level, and in both cases that limits you to a few ugly mouthpieces. For every limb, feeler and weapon, the one that suits you is often too weak to use. I don't see why Maxis couldn't have let us spend some DNA points to upgrade the parts we actually like.
Nevertheless, designing creatures remains the highlight of Spore's creative side. The aforementioned compromises even occasionally lead you to gruesome new concepts that you wouldn't have otherwise tried. And - as surely everyone has now experienced for themselves - clicking that button and watching your new baby walk is an enduringly magical thing.
The vehicle, building and spacecraft editors later on are more flexible, but there's not that same pleasure of watching the game interpret what you've built, and figure out how it should work. Since, y'know, buildings don't walk.
You can't imagine how cute your little freak looks waddling around a whole planet, singing to woo other little freaks into waddling alongside him, munching fruit from trees. I just now discovered that if you click fruit high up in a tree, your little chap jumps and jumps in vain, then shakes his head sadly.
You can charm a few creatures into following you around, but as the impressive ones usually find your song-and-dance routine rather gauche, you tend to end up with a gang of evolutionary rejects. Blinky is an eyeball on legs. Sluggy still has his cilia from the tidepool. And NCC-1701D is a scale model of the Starship Enterprise - very low-level social skills.
This is predictably adorable, but unfortunately your losers are also idiots. In every sticky situation, they stay and fight no matter how you exhort them to flee with you. And so they die, and you are alone again.
One such comrade was a friendly pear I found, whom I sung for and nicknamed Peary - shortly before noticing that this was his name. Peary was a true friend. Too true. When we were attacked by a rogue dragon creature, I ran but Peary stayed to fight. He was slaughtered. After eating his corpse and crying, I spotted an opportunity for revenge. A 200-foot pile of fish mouths on legs stomped by. I baited him towards the rogue dragon, then sprinted to safety. The dragon did not survive.
Once your pack of losers is starting to look more like a posse, there's a long and profoundly brilliant homage to a certain science fiction classic, and suddenly your species is using tools and living in huts. Here at the Tribe stage you direct your dozen-odd tribe members as you would in a small strategy game, and destroy or ally with other tribes to gain their weapons and food-gathering gear.
It's a brief and satisfying simplification of an RTS, very small-scale and personal. You can tame wild animals, play didgeridoo solos to impress other tribes, go fishing, or watch epic chairs prey on villages of disabled pensioners - it's all rather idyllic.
The only letdown is that there's no real creative side to this stage. There's a tribal outfit editor, but the pieces are ugly, you can't choose their colour and they don't fit well on most unconventional creatures. It's only good for adding the obligatory moustache and top hat, once you become Civilised by wiping out the other tribes. What what.
The Civilisation stage has nothing to do with Civilization, despite having the actual designer of Civ IV working on it. It's another fun, fast and easy real-time strategy, only this time you're taking over nine enemy cities of your own species. This feels wrong: for one thing, who killed me and made themselves president? Like, nine guys, apparently. For another, the AI has them using all sorts of vehicles and buildings that don't look right for your race.
For the nation you control, you design every vehicle and building. That's a little daunting. You can pick other people's work and recolour it, but if you wanted to do that you probably wouldn't be playing Spore. Civ is all about your vehicles: at this stage your viewpoint is too high up to even see your citizens unless you zoom in on a city, and while you can make some extraordinary buildings, their design doesn't affect their function.
I can't wait for the gaming world to get its billion-fingered hands on the Vehicle Creator, because you can craft some truly wondrous contraptions. Things suspended by balloons, things with paddlewheels, things on robotic legs, things with guns, things with loudspeakers or just heaped in cash. But the best thing about this editor is that it looks at how much power, health and speed you've put into your creation in terms of the components you've chosen, and divides a fixed amount of points proportionally between the three.
This means that using the parts you like the look of, even if they have terrible stats, won't leave your creation useless. Unlike a certain Creature Creator that shall remain nameless, namely the Creature Creator.
It's just a shame that even on Hard mode, the Civ Stage is so easy that you never really need to pay much attention to these machines. It's not too simple - plenty of interesting strategies are possible - but the game never calls for them.
According to Spore, a race needs to conquer the planet before it can launch a spacecraft. The spaceship editor is like all of the vehicle editors combined, but your design is purely aesthetic: all UFOs are born equal. Take some time on it, though, because you'll be looking at this for the rest of the game. You can now zoom around the planet you've been on all this time, at an exciting speed. Then, when you're ready, mousewheel up to lift off and leave the atmosphere. Space!
Firstly, space itself is big. You zoom out until you can see the sun and the other planets orbiting it, then until you can see another, brighter star far from yours. Then until you can see a whole cluster of the suckers, each circled by tiny planets, then until that cluster becomes a tiny speck in a stunning field of dots stretching gasp-inducingly far in every direction. Then until these dots become a glowing mist, and all that, everything you've seen, is just a tiny section of a huge, broad belt of this dazzling stardust. Then until that band turns out to be the thin part of the end part of just one of the many, many arms of the galactic spiral. It's big.
And the first two times I played it, it sucked. The problem is that a lot of the galaxy around you is randomised, and a lot of the random races in it are assholes. They'll declare war on you for straying into their territory, they'll declare war on you for not giving them sums of money you don't have, and often, they'll declare war on you before you've even met them. You'll get a message from an alien race you've never heard of, 25 light-years from any of your worlds, saying "You have defied the will of Spode for the last time. We are at war."
In my first Space game, on Easy mode, this was my punishment for trying to explore: I ran into an enemy race, they attacked me, I ran away, they followed, I defended myself, they declared war. And it took me eight hours of miserable play to discover that there is genuinely no way out of this situation. To win, I'd have to destroy every city on every planet around every star in an empire 8,000 cubic light-years big. To make peace, I'd have to pay them off with at least one and a half million Sporebucks, and thanks to constant invasions destroying all my revenue sources, I never made even a third of that.
Obviously, this shouldn't be happening on Easy mode. The whole reason Spore is a singleplayer game is so that utter pricks can't show up and ruin your fun, and yet that's precisely what the AI is programmed to be and do. On any difficulty mode, you shouldn't be punished for exploring with regular attacks on your homeworld that force you to trek all the way back there, fight the same battle over and over, then spend everything you have repairing the damage. As it stands, if you get into a war before you're mighty enough to win it, there's virtually no escape. It's Spore's biggest, dumbest, most easily fixable flaw, and it's going to put a lot of people off what is actually the best stage.
In space, most planets produce one flavour or another of Spice, a precious science fiction reference you can mine or trade. But you can't set up much of a mining colony unless the planet is habitable. To make it so, you need to buy tools for your spaceship to tweak the atmospheric conditions, then use your abduction ray to import your favourite creature creations from other planets to form an ecosystem. Deeply nerdy and highly satisfying stuff.
There's also a Main Quest, of sorts: to reach the centre of the galaxy. The difficulty being that the whole central cluster is owned by an evil empire that attacks on sight. It's worth slipping by them, though: I won't spoil what's in there, but I can honestly say I wasn't expecting it.
Even the spaceship combat becomes fun once you've levelled up your UFO enough to go on the offensive, and roped a few allies into lending you a wingman each. I was primarily a trader, so my tactic involved baiting all the enemies into chasing me in a tight cluster, activating an invulnerability shield and then firing a $200,000 anti-matter missile into them at point-blank range.
Spore's triumph is painfully ironic. By setting out to instil a sense of wonderment at creation and the majesty of the universe, it's shown us that it's actually a lot more interesting to sit here at our computers and explore the contents of each other's brains. The number of species created by Spore players already outnumbers those we've identified on Earth, and more importantly most of them are just better. There are a few humans I like the look of, sloths are kind of cute and I have a soft spot for the mighty walrus, but other than that, God's accomplishments are starting to look embarrassingly amateur. He's no AhavoRaboTaco.
looks fantastic. i usually despise anything to do with EA, but this has come from the mind of will wright, so hes getting all my credit. im buying this, even though i usually have no interest in this kind of thing. its truly precedent-setting.
"To win, I'd have to destroy every city on every planet around every star in an empire 8,000 cubic light-years big." Couldn't you just destroy their suns? (GalCiv2 Peace Journal FTW!)
"To win, I'd have to destroy every city on every planet around every star in an empire 8,000 cubic light-years big." Couldn't you just destroy their suns? (GalCiv2 Peace Journal FTW!)
Alas no. Spore has a Planet Buster, but no Star f**ker.
What's happening with the console versions? I'm sure this was supposed to be multiplatform but I can't find them for pre-order or anything.
afaik the only "console" version is the DS, which isnt exactly the same...
theres also an iphone game.
anyway i digress, i preloaded through the eastore earlier in the week, and can't wait! (tis a bit of a shame that you can't just start with one of your creature creator creatures though :/)
Here's my issue - I couldn't run the Creature Creator at the same time as the stupid EA Downloader (stupid crashing issues), so have they fixed that? Obviously I want to get in on patches and new creature downloads ASAP, but if I need to keep installing and uninstalling the stupid thing I at least want to be prepared.
I know the plan was originally to have it on every medium possible. PCs, all consoles, all phones, anything with an inet browser.
I can't get it unless it's on the 360, so I'm gonna be massively friggen p!ssed off if it's not.
Even if they did port it to consoles - its not the kind of game FOR a console. its just not made to be a console game. can you imagine trying to intracately sculpt a creature with analogue sticks? are you kidding me?
Just got mine today and it's been great so far. The first PC game I've been excited about for ages. Everyone needs to get this game, simple as. As for console versions, it just wouldn't work, especially the creature creation element. Just pick it up on PC for £30 and cross your finger your computer can run it.
I know the plan was originally to have it on every medium possible. PCs, all consoles, all phones, anything with an inet browser.
I can't get it unless it's on the 360, so I'm gonna be massively friggen p!ssed off if it's not.
Even if they did port it to consoles - its not the kind of game FOR a console. its just not made to be a console game. can you imagine trying to intracately sculpt a creature with analogue sticks? are you kidding me?
I have to agree, it's not just PC-user elitism for a change! I downloaded creature creator and I just can't see it on my 360, it wouldn't work and even if they did port it I really wouldn't want to play it on a console. For those asking specs: WINDOWS XP • 2.0 GHz P4 processor or equivalent • 512 MB RAM • A 128 MB Video Card, with support for Pixel Shader 2.0 • At least 6 GB of hard drive space
VISTA a computer rating of 3.0 (required) or higher. (4.0 recommended).
Anyhoo, much love for the game and being a so-called hardcore gamer I'm almost embarrassed to admit it's the first EVER game (i'm 24) I've pre-ordered.
1 day 8 hours EA tells me in my download manager almost in a teasing way!!!
For computers using built-in graphics chipsets, the game requires at least: • Intel Integrated Chipset, 945GM or above. • 2.6 GHz Pentium D CPU, or 1.8 GHz Core 2 Duo, or equivalent. • 768 MB RAM Supported Video Cards ATI Radeon(TM) series • 9500, 9600, 9800 • X300, X600, X700, X800, X850 • X1300, X1600, X1800, X1900, X1950 • 2400, 2600, 2900, • 3650, 3850 NVIDIA GeForce series • FX 5900, FX 5950 • 6200, 6500, 6600, 6800, • 7200, 7300, 7600, 7800, 7900, 7950 • 8400, 8500, 8600, 8800 Intel(R) Extreme Graphics • GMA 950, GMA X3000, GMA X3100 Laptop versions of these chipsets may work, but may run comparatively slowly. Standalone cards that are installed in vanilla PCI slots (not PCIe or PCIx or AGP), such as some GeForce FX variants, will perform poorly. Intel integrated chipsets featuring underclocked parts, such as the 945GU, GML, and GMS, will not perform adequately. Please note that attempting to play the game using video hardware that isn’t listed above may result in reduced performance, graphical issues or cause the game to not run at all. The NVIDIA GeForce FX series is unsupported under Vista.
Christ they're advertising this on telly, it's been ages since i saw a pc only game advertised on telly. I think the last one i saw was C&C tiberium sun.
I think it would be perfect for a console. The cutesy, rounded characterture (sp?) graphics look like they're fit perfectly on a console. Certainly alot more than a shooter would, and shooters are a dime a dozen on consoles.
Besides that, the standard hardware would allow EA to use everything to its fullest.
I stopped reading right there. Keep religion the fsck out of gaming. This game is about evolution, not creationism.
before i start i'd like to say my beliefs are my own, i dont subscribe to any registered religeous format, neither do i believe in one higher being and all that jazz, i dont go to church, i studies biology and evolution itself in depth and think its the best idea of how things occur so far (though equally i think all scientific "facts" are just our best reasoning of how things occur and should be up for questioning at any time, hell how would we have figured out how we see other wise) now then...
is it really about JUST evolution? look at it, at every stage of the game, YOU (as a godlike controlling entity) take your creature and manipulate it like it was clay, you fiddle with the length of its legs, the shape of its body, its eyes, senses, running speed ability to jump, even down to the way they build their vehicles and buildings. the creatures dont naturally progress into the most suited form for the environment, you have to dive in a sort it out for them, the games environment doesnt cause genetic changes, you just decide you want to slap on a new pair of eyes, job done.
i think t marries well the idea's of creationism and evolution, maybe there is a god, if so would it not encourage evolution? coming back every now and then to reevaluate what a creature needs and fiddle with its genetic programming progressively to allow it to survive, or leaving it to fend for itself as its usefulness ends?
Apparently so... I can't wait for tomorrow. Might have to call in sick... mind you, I work for the NHS and it is incredibly hard to pull a sicky when you work in an office with 3 nurses and 2 social workers.
Obtained a copy last night and had a quick go. I showed it to my SIMS playing daughter this morning who was late for school because she has fallen in love with this game already.
Increadable idea and so full of potential and fun.
Never have I see a review where the reviewer has pointed out so many thing wrong with the game and then given a 90%+ review!
After reading this illogical review, I finally give up on media reviews and will now only base purchases on User Reviews!
I mean, every damn paragraph talked about a problem - and the huge 'difficulty level' one alone should have brought this score down to the mid eighties!
You can now tell which games are going to get in the 90's, which one's are going to get in the 80's and so on, just by the hype and the publisher rather than the game. This game was never going to get lower than 90 and that's why it has got the score it has, despite the actual negativity of the review!!!
So I already know: Fallout 3 - 93%, Far Cry 2 - 91%, Precursors - 82%, White Gold - 85%, Dead Space - 94%, any Valve game 93%, any title from a smaller publisher in the 80's, and game from a smaller publisher that 'tries something different' 80's or below and follow-up or high hyped title (Bioshock 2, Mass Effect 2, etc) 90%+. Any graphic adventure: 80's at most. Any simulation - mid 80's at most. You can even be more general. Any major publisher with a TPS or FPS will get 90%+, any non TPS or FPS from a smaller publisher will barely get into then 80's.
Notice I have not mentioned quality at all. This is what we have come to now. Only actual user reviews are going to be my marker for whether a game is good.
Spore is a 83% review with a 93& score. Such is the gaming world we now live in.
Not being funny, but reviews have been like that for a VERY long time. The most balanced reviews tend to be those in Edge or GamesTM, and they have such a high reputation for that reason.
In honesty though, don't you ever get annoyed with your own level of cynicism?
I am running out first thing in the morning to grab this on the way to work, and I will probsably leave early just so I can get it running. I had more fun with the creature editor demo alone than I have had with so many games in the last year. My only hope is that EA don't treat it like the sims and release dozens of content-lite expansion packs.
Never have I see a review where the reviewer has pointed out so many thing wrong with the game and then given a 90%+ review!
After reading this illogical review, I finally give up on media reviews and will now only base purchases on User Reviews!
I mean, every damn paragraph talked about a problem - and the huge 'difficulty level' one alone should have brought this score down to the mid eighties!
You can now tell which games are going to get in the 90's, which one's are going to get in the 80's and so on, just by the hype and the publisher rather than the game. This game was never going to get lower than 90 and that's why it has got the score it has, despite the actual negativity of the review!!!
So I already know: Fallout 3 - 93%, Far Cry 2 - 91%, Precursors - 82%, White Gold - 85%, Dead Space - 94%, any Valve game 93%, any title from a smaller publisher in the 80's, and game from a smaller publisher that 'tries something different' 80's or below and follow-up or high hyped title (Bioshock 2, Mass Effect 2, etc) 90%+. Any graphic adventure: 80's at most. Any simulation - mid 80's at most. You can even be more general. Any major publisher with a TPS or FPS will get 90%+, any non TPS or FPS from a smaller publisher will barely get into then 80's.
Notice I have not mentioned quality at all. This is what we have come to now. Only actual user reviews are going to be my marker for whether a game is good.
Spore is a 83% review with a 93& score. Such is the gaming world we now live in.
I think the point is that even with those faults, Spore is a fantastic game.
- Scores aren't calculated by the percentage of the text that was about a game's strengths.
- Spore's appeal is simple and potent, its problems are small and intricate. They take longer to explain.
- It's not a coincidence or a conspiracy that developers who have extensive experience making great games, extensive resources from the profits of those games, and more creative freedom as a result of their success, often make great games.
- When indie developers transcend or bypass their limited resources to fully accomplish a great concept, we give the game a high score. If they fall short, we don't give them compensation points for being small.
Heh, I pre-ordered it with the Creator a while back from www.direct2drive.co.uk, and tonight, as it goes live, their dl servers are predictably being hammered to stone-cold death.
Pentadact, I am sorry, but your magazine publishing group have given too many 90%+ scores to large publishers with 75% games and too many 75% scores to 90% games that came from small publishers for me to believe you.
With this review score you have gone one step to far. When compared to the CVG score given to STALKER: Clear Sky for it's problems and then looking at Spore's problems, I see no logical reason for the 93% score.
Maybe someone can help me. I am in Norway, and even though during all installation process i always choose English language, the game always is in Norwegian. I really want to play it in English..anyone have an idea how to turn English language on??
When compared to the CVG score given to STALKER: Clear Sky for it's problems and then looking at Spore's problems, I see no logical reason for the 93% score.
When compared to the CVG score given to STALKER: Clear Sky for it's problems and then looking at Spore's problems, I see no logical reason for the 93% score.
I gave it 91.
Yes, I made a typo. If only CVG's crimes were just typo's.
Oh, and Gamespot gave this 80%, so stop implying it's just me. If anything, your review talks about some of the same things. Strange you saw no reason to lower the score because of them, like Gamespot obviously did.
A review is subjective. If you don't agree with it, fine, don't buy the game, but I don't know what you think you're going to achieve by stamping your feet on here.
When compared to the CVG score given to STALKER: Clear Sky for it's problems and then looking at Spore's problems, I see no logical reason for the 93% score.
I gave it 91.
Yes, I made a typo. If only CVG's crimes were just typo's.
Oh, and Gamespot gave this 80%, so stop implying it's just me. If anything, your review talks about some of the same things. Strange you saw no reason to lower the score because of them, like Gamespot obviously did.
A review is subjective. If you don't agree with it, fine, don't buy the game, but I don't know what you think you're going to achieve by stamping your feet on here.
How about getting fairer, more honest reviews for a start? Don;t know why I bother when idiot gamers can't even understand why other gamers stamp their feet on their behalf! It's this ignorance that has had the media go down this route as well as the publishers. Obviously the dumbing down in society is suiting the gaming media and industry down to the ground!
Life isn't fair, get over it.
Plus, the review tells you where the problems are, and if you're willing to accept those faults, you buy the game.
I don't need someone campaigning for more honest reviews, as I've already stated, it was the reviewers opinion, and because of that I don't make such a big deal of it.
You're not doing yourself any favours by implying people who disagree with your opinion are idiots too.
I would just ignore humorguy if I were you, he used to post fairly well-thought-out (but still overly cynical and trollish) comments. These days he just stamps his feet, slagging everything off and if you object to him, he gets all high-and-mighty.
I would just ignore humorguy if I were you, he used to post fairly well-thought-out (but still overly cynical and trollish) comments. These days he just stamps his feet, slagging everything off and if you object to him, he gets all high-and-mighty.
its a shame that some people have become so cynical so obsessed about their own opinions that they no longer use clear reason, and only throw tantrums when someone disagrees isnt it
on that note, heres my player review!:
95% its a great GAME (hey look its a game, i enjoy games, i even make games, what dya know), the visual style and general appeal of it are overwhelming, i really havent had this much fun while failing horribly at a game since portal, and i think many would agree that portal was an achievement. ran through the first stages of the game pretty easilly, but the space stage is HUGE! and very difficult. immense difficulty isnt the reason it gets knocked down for me, i enjoy a challenge, and find that many many games nowadays do not deliver a challenging experience. my real beef is that the early parts didnt feel like they took long enough, they don't set you up for the immensity that is the space stage,but even thats a tiny bit of damage to an otherwise incredible game.
oh and if humourguy does read this, just for you my scores 100% (for everyone else its still 95)
dya think he'll turn up at my house with a hatchet in hand now?
(topping it off: humourguy i find your cynisism incredibly insulting, especially to believe that your opinion should override anyone elses, a review is formed from a players point of view, cvg obviously believe the game deserves its high score, because they enjoyed it. while they may well give high scores to things like championship manager, world of warcraft, even halo 3, i personally would rate them each incredibly low, simply because i did not find them an enjoyable experience.
you believe that this game will only sell to those who enjoyed the sims, well i didnt enjoy the sims, i thaught they were boring, i baught this game because i liked the idea, the concept, and i am glad to find that it meets up to my expectations and delivers a heap of fun.
Humorguy - life is not fair. Big companies with lots of money sometimes make good games. Small time designers try but will never have the resources needed to work on the same scope. (Not to say that some independent games are not occasionally brilliant - even though I believe PC Gamer has been pushing a certain indie pixel raper a bit too much)
This is the first time since HL came out that I have been honestly excited about a game. Originality and inspiration is sadly lacking from all video games at the moment and has been for a long time.
Spore is a move in the right direction. Just the concept of user generated life in the universe puts it in the 90s so please please everyone, buy this game instead of a takeway. It will last longer and be almost as fun as stumbling.
Well I hated the game this morning when I first started playing. I found the first part just like "flow" on the PS3 (not that that's a bad thing but it immediately gave me a feeling of 'boooring, done this before').
Just as I'm getting used to it, whoosh I'm thrown into the next part, and then the next part and so on. I kept feeling like just as I was getting used to something, I'd be thrown into something else, but that's exactly why I'm now beginning to love it. It makes me adapt just as my creature has to. Just as you think you have something nailed, it throws another game mechanic at you until you're looking at the much grander scale of things.
You get a sort of sense of accomplishment from knowing that the buzzing planet before you was a direct result of what you did on a molecular level (I'm surprised 'from Amoeba to Zeus' hasn't been used as yet btw).
It's also nice to know that things will be better the next time around. Right now I'm ploughing through at light speed eager to see what lies in store, but I know the next time I'll spend a good hour or so making my town hall just right, or that extra bit of time looking for some DNA, or even trying to make friends with another tribe rather than smashing them to bits with stone hammers.
The sheer scale is overwhelming so it's no surprise that there may be the odd bug or that the game moves so fast so that you get a chance to see it all. Just remember that you can still slow down and take your time on the play elements that suit you most.
It's early days yet, and the online community is buzzing and making things like no tomorrow so I think there will always be something fresh to see. Keep having a rest and coming back to it if you feel things are moving too fast, let things settle in a bit. I reckon you'll find this game growing on you, or at least some part of it.
Wish i could play this, but the problem is im too addicted to dam Gears Of War on the PC GrRrRrrr, i dont think im ever going to get away from the bloody thing untill Gears 2 comes out Ive had this game for about 6 months now and still havent played the extra chapter!
Have you bothered to read any of the reviews? 90% of em give the game 1 star because of the lousy DRM method. The following quote from the first review I popped open says it all:
Please don't support this product. Great game. Lousy distributor.
popular magazines such as cvg will always cower in front of and sell out to, companies such as EA. Hell, i bet EA personally ring up cvg and threaten to penetrate them all with a gigantic black dildo if they dont give their games good scores. I personally love spore - but the fact of the matter is - tom francis is balding
As a long time reader of PCGamer UK, this will be the last review I will ever read from them.
Biased. PCGamer was going to give this game 90+ even before this review was even thought about, as did most other gaming magazines. It's good for the game as they can now display the 'PCGamer 90+' motif on future advertising, and its good for PCGamer as people will buy the magazine due to good advertising for them on game packaging etc. It's not good for the people who have bought this heap of junk because of a biased review.
In future, I will rely on the true reviewers, the people who have actually bought and played the game, and given an 'honest' opinion, without any marketing hype to boost scores.
IMO this game barely scrapes out of the 70's, 79 being a more 'realistic' figure, when the faults are taken into consideration. It's a mish-mash of mini-games that dont quite fit together, along with watered down content that was promised at E3.
It could have been so much more, and I find it a shame it falls very short of the usual 'hype' machine.
Well admittedly the developers have had some consideration for moving this game onto other consoles such as the ps3 and wii but were wondering how it could effect the whole franchise
i agree with a few ppl and its not for the best of reasons. I do agree that the score of 91 is a to good for this game. But i've seen it before GTAIV most sites and mags where giving it way to high a score some even called it a near prefect game.
I wonder how much £££ did they get or some very nice freebies. Yes Spore is a good game but it comes a good bit short what we were promised, all cause the worse and most money hungry publisher in the world wanted to string out the game with Sims like addons!
And tbh i fell its a bit crap that u totally kick small indie companys in the balls when they fail to delevery, even clearly that it has a smaller budget than most other companies which has a far bigger budget and fail, get maybe 2 or 3 points of there score and its all forgoting about. It should be the other way round.
Indie companies who come up short of but they tried and do a good job, as its those good reviews what help they get better and the negivtives in those reviews which help them while big companies especially EA giving out crap after crap getting good scores and basicly there games are clones and pants.
Enough ranting from me, i just wish to say CVG grow a set and start reviewing the game trutly as players and not on the amount of cash or freebies ur getting. All want is honest reviews
i bet the game was originally as good as planned, but EA removed a load of s**t and split it all into expansion packs because theyre money grabbing jews
Spore is fantastic, obviously it doesn't live up to the hype, but then again any game thats over hyped is never as good as what you want it to be, and spore has been 8 years in the making, so thats a lot of hype.
Anyway, aside all that the game play is exactly what I expected, and I am enjoying it thoroughly, the concept of sharing your creations with the community is fantastic...in total I give it 8 out of 10.
I'm sorry but Spore is not a great game. It's frustrating, it's tedious, it's repetitive, but great, it is not.
Shenmue, was great. Ocarina of Time, was great. Homeworld...yep that was great too. Spore doesn't even belong in the same area code as these gems, and that is such a terrible shame.
The first stages aside, my biggest gripe is with the space stage and how your entire civilisation is completely incapable of fending for itself. Thereby requiring you to run around all over the smegging universe (got that red dwarf reference in ) doing errands for every amoeba and it's dog. Instead of being able to play with all the toys your Ufo can get, which could be fun but because I'm constantly pestered by my own creations I don't even have a chance to give them ago.
Many times I have prepared to teraform a planet, when just as I arrive I get the warning sign that one of my planets is under attack. So I head back, deal with the invasion, then just as I'm about to leave, the same planet is attacked again!!!
Why does everyone else get loads of Ufos, and I'm stuck with just the one, and the rubbish allied rejects that you can enlist?
Don't get me wrong. There are some nice ideas, and it's clear to me that this is another example of EA ruining a perfectly good franchise (I hate them, I hate them, I hate them). You only need to look at what was showcased two years ago to see the differences that have befallen what could have been the game of the decade.
I kinda agree with you SuperCinos in all you say, but what's worrying me more is what Willforbes said, as I think he has 'hit the nail on the head' in a way?
We will, however, see if that is true not so soon I expect, when the expansion packs start rolling out with the 'missing' content that should have been in the original package.
I have this game now and its great. Personally I would give the game around 94% but 91 isn't bad. Then again I haven't seen the whole game (I am on Space tho...)
I think the score is justified. The whole point of a review is to look at the quality of the game, not its delivery method.
For those that criticise the 91% score obviously don't understand how brilliant this game really is.
I mean, what else can you honestly compare it to?
If you think that it doesn't deserve this score, then obviously it isn't the sort of game you'd like. The game does have it's many faults, but it more than makes up for it
Spore says it can only be patched using EA Downloader. I can't say how well that'll work for this game, but I can say every experience I've ever had with that infernal program has been terrible, and their tech support have left me hanging for over a year at this point.
// Crashes
The game crashed four times in my 50-odd hours of play, which I find entirely acceptable. What's completely unacceptable is that there's no autosave whatsoever, so every single time I lost over three hours of progress. Please patch promptly.
// Sporecasts
Lastly, you can get all the awesome creations that made my experience so extraordinary by subscribing to the PC Gamer Sporecast in-game: it's an ongoing collection of our favourite content that, once subscribed to, will automatically crop up in your game.
Copyright 2006 - 2009 Future Publishing Limited, Beauford Court, 30 Monmouth Street, Bath, UK BA1 2BW England and Wales company registration number 2008885
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) doing errands for every amoeba and it's dog. Instead of being able to play with all the toys your Ufo can get, which could be fun but because I'm constantly pestered by my own creations I don't even have a chance to give them ago.
