Review: Spore 605
- Title: Spore
- Developer: Maxis
- Publisher: Electronic Arts
- System: Windows / OS X
- Reviewer: Soulskill
- Score: 4/5
The game has five stages: Cell, Creature, Tribal, Civilization, and Space. It's best to think of the first four as mini-games, or as a four-part prologue. Each has its interesting and fun parts, as well as varying degrees of replayability, but the time each of them occupies (from a gameplay perspective) is dwarfed by the amount of time you can spend in the Space age. You can also spend a great deal more time playing around with the content creation system (and you will), but the main plot itself is fairly short in those stages. If you're going in with the expectation of playing around in the Cell stage for hours and hours, you're probably going to be disappointed — but that's not to say it isn't fun. I think each of the stages are appropriately paced for what they involve.
You start out as a cell, hitching a ride on a meteorite that delivers you into a planet's primordial soup. From there you wander around finding morsels of food and other critters who will compete with you for it. The way in which you go about that is up to you. You'll gain access to attributes you can use to customize your microbe, all of which have a "DNA budget." You can make a very efficient killing machine to keep your competitors away from your food, or you can simply make a very efficient eating machine. The editor that allows you to add and remove these attributes also lets you change the size, shape, and coloring of your microbe. It's a combination of very simple components, but the interactions between microbes allow for some cute moments. You'll occasionally run into a big piece of plant life that's swarming with herbivores, and the herbivores will attract a ton of carnivores, making for a frenetic scene of feeding and fighting. You can make your species into what is essentially a tail and a mouth, and have fun zipping around and stealing food out from under fat, slow enemies. You might even see a copy of yourself beating up some bug with way too many mouths. One of the coolest parts about this stage is the background visuals. The focus is on your microbe swimming through the water, but underneath you can see that you're swimming by larger pieces of debris and more advanced life-forms. As you feed, you'll grow into these background layers, so the huge, blurry, tentacled abomination you swam by a minute ago might now be trying to kill you.
Another thing you'll notice is that referring to your species' growth as evolution isn't really accurate. "Stylized evolution" or "not evolution" would have been more precise, so don't go in expecting it to hold up to scrutiny from PZ Myers. It's a decent metaphor for modifying your species, however. The editor is versatile and completely forgiving. Did you put that spike in a useless place for stabbing rival microbes? No worries, you can move it anywhere. Or remove it for a full DNA refund. This may bug you if you want every decision to matter, but as I said earlier, the first four stages are more about setting the table for Space colonization. Also, some decisions do matter. The way in which you interact with the environment determines your initial disposition in the Creature stage. Between stages, you're given a detailed history of your character, including physical revisions and eating habits. Carnivores start the Creature stage with an intimidating roar, while herbivores get a soothing song. Between stages you'll get to see cut scenes; they're short, but they all managed to make me smile. On a related note, I've got to give credit to Maxis for making the most interesting loading screens I've ever waited through. Instead of a progress bar, a series of cards gradually appears at the bottom of the screen. On each card is a different species (or other creation), some of which were made by other players. It's fun to see what they've come up with.
Going into the Creature phase, your microbe is given a set of legs. Your attributes from the Cell stage are mostly useless, and you'll have a chance to completely change how your species looks. You get a nest and a group of compatriots, and you're soon off to seek out new life and new civilizations (and food.) Other species are nearby and easy to find. There are two stances in which you can approach them; social or combat. If you started out as a herbivore, it'll be a bit easier to remain so, but it's not too difficult to change your mind. As you find other species, you're given quests based on the stance you choose. Kill them or impress them. Should you choose to kill them, you mash the attacks available to you until one they die or you do. To impress them, you get their attention and then mimic whatever they do. You'll get some friendly abilities — dance, pose, charm, and sing, each of which has its own animation — and you simply repeat the other species' actions. If they like you enough, they'll ally with you, which progresses you through the stage and allows you to venture out with a group rather than an individual. As you ally with or destroy other species, you gain access to new and more powerful bits of biology — a bigger claw, quicker feet, wings, etc. There's a much greater selection in this phase than in Cell, and it's worth collecting as many as you can. You also get a few cosmetic options. When you exit this stage, your species' physical form does not change for the rest of the game, so make sure you've got what you want. If you go the combat route, you may be annoyed trying to hunt down species that are faster, flightier, or more nervous than you. There were times that I ran so far away to catch Lobstermonkey #4 that I got lost and couldn't find my way back to the nest to kill Lobstermonkey #5 and complete the quest. And this brings me to a gripe...
...The controls. The key-bindings for Spore are fairly simple. They increase a little bit in complexity with each stage, but even the Space controls are straightforward. The trouble is that they aren't alterable, and they aren't what I would pick. They aren't bad choices, and you can do just about everything with the mouse, but if you're the type of player who rebinds WADS to ESDF in every game, or if you like an inverted mouse, or the ability to strafe, it will bother you.
The Tribal stage turns Spore into a miniature RTS game. You won't find Starcraft-level depth or gameplay, but if you've ever played another RTS game, your goals will be intuitively obvious. Your abilities from the Creature stage don't matter anymore, so you're free to design for looks alone. Wandering bands of non-sentient creatures still exist, but they're mainly just food (or pets if you're a herbivore). In addition, though, there are other tribes that you must conquer. You gather resources, pump out peasants, and put up buildings. Rather than creating tribe members for a specific job, you use the buildings to give them a particular task, and you can switch their task at any time. Want this guy to fight? Send him to the axe shop. Need him to impress another tribe instead? Trade in that axe for a horn. Or a Shaman rod to heal others. The focus in this stage is mostly on resource gathering; unfortunately, you have to send tribesmen out each time you want them to kill something, rather than setting them to harvest and forgetting about them. The gathering gets somewhat tedious, but the Tribal stage, like the ones before it, isn't too long. It's fairly easy to win over or beat down your enemies, just keep an eye on your raiding parties around hills. They sometimes get stuck. The AI isn't too hot, but enemies will try to take out your chieftain if they can. The editor in this stage is also less complex. Your species form is set, but you get a variety of hats, clothes, and accessories to outfit your tribe. Not as much room for creativity as in the Creature editor, but there are still myriad ways to customize.
When you reach the Civilization stage, you'll encounter a host of new creation and design tools. You'll be asked to design a city hall, a house, an entertainment facility, and a factory, as well as land, air, and water vehicles. If that sounds a bit overwhelming ... it is. At the start of the stage, I spent perhaps an hour tooling around with designs for a city hall and a land vehicle. You don't need to design the others until you build them, but it doesn't take long for that need to arise. Now, don't get me wrong; designing things is one of the best parts about this game. But after a certain amount of time you'll probably just want to get back to the actual game. Fortunately, there's the Sporepedia, which includes hundreds upon hundreds of designs from Maxis and from other players. Some of them are just phenomenal, and I'm sure the selection will only get better as time passes. Expect to see things out of sci-fi and other games. Expect to see anything Maxis doesn't specifically remove, really. Pick whichever constructions you want out of the Sporepedia to fill out the things you don't want to design, and you're ready to fight for control of the planet. Don't waste your time with the anthem composer. It sucks.
Civilization stage is like another, slightly different RTS. The focus is gone from resource gathering; you point a vehicle at a "spice geyser" and forget about it — once a mine gets built, you even get the vehicle back. It's more focused on vehicle tactics and managing your cities. Other civilizations pop up throughout the world (which is an actual globe now), and you try your best to cajole, scare, or apesmash them into seeing your point of view. You can set yourself up as a religious society to convert the populace of other cities. This stage, like the tribal stage, is straightforward and easy, but entertaining. Your species' history continues to fill out, setting your early disposition for the next stage. Before you think about bumping the difficulty setting up to "high," though, you'll want to give thought to how it will affect the Space stage, since that's where you'll spend most of your time. It has a bit more to throw at you.
Getting to the Space stage is reaching the real meat of the game. You'll be given some starter quests and tutorials to teach you how everything works. Pay attention to them, or you'll regret it later. Really. This stage plays like another RTS, yet is completely different from the previous ones. It isn't about pumping out units to stomp your enemies; you're limited to just one ship to start. As you get promoted, you can add more to your fleet, but not very many. Your colonies will harvest spice for you to sell. How much depends on how well the planet is terraformed. Terraforming a planet is somewhat complicated to learn, but it lets you set up a good financial base, which makes dealing with aliens much, much easier. And believe me, you'll deal with them a lot. Regardless of the way in which you interacted with your foes in previous stages, I'd recommend playing nice at least for the first few encounters of the Space stage. You can run some simple quests for other races to increase your standing with them. You can also bribe them. Once you're in their good graces, you can establish trade routes and alliances, which are much better than the alternative. When you run into a hostile society, you'll see what I mean. They like to raid your planets. A lot. They also like to raid your friends' planets. And your friends will occasionally have crises they need you to deal with. The demands on your attention range from "keeping you busy" to "driving you to distraction." This stage could really use a Leave-Me-Alone slider in addition to the difficulty setting, although cheat codes can accomplish that now. But, if you start out surrounded by friends, it's a lot easier to find time for developing your empire. Again, terraforming is important to learn. It's also the basis for creating custom planets. You get a variety of tools to alter the atmosphere and temperature, and you can bring in flora and fauna to make it more prosperous. But you also get devices that will shape, sculpt, and color the planet to look however you want. Once again, Maxis has provided a huge sandbox to play in. You can control the look and feel of literally hundreds of thousands of star systems.
The combat system is simple, but a bit clunky. Some of your weapons require Diablo-style button clicking, which can be a problem if there are a ton of ships flying around. Battles tend to be lopsided, but the more often you fight, the better weapons you'll have access to. Enemy ships will occasionally beat a hasty retreat when low on health, then stop, heal to full, and turn on you. It doesn't usually change the tide of a battle, but it can be annoying to track them down and finish them off. Other aspects of the game give you more tools the more you participate as well, which is why Spore is so open-ended. Don't want to run around blowing up enemy ships and cities all the time? Do a bunch of terraforming, get good at it, and then cause an enemy homeworld to turn into a burning, hazardous rock incapable of supporting life. Want to explore the galaxy or collect rare artifacts? Feel free, just watch out for the mysterious and powerful Grox. Make sure your borders are secure before straying too far, though, or enemies will pick your empire apart. The Space stage will keep you occupied as long as you're still entertained by it. Building an empire is a job with no end.
Spore isn't about deep, innovative gameplay. If you're looking for a next-generation RTS, look elsewhere. None of the stages, individually, would hold up in today's game market. But all of them combined, in addition to the almost limitless capacity for creativity, make Spore into a good game that will only get better with time and participation. The low learning curve and the ease with which you can pick a point in the game and find something to play around with makes it very appealing to the casual gaming market, while still offering a ton of achievements and ways to squeeze out every last bit of efficiency for the hardcore gamers. Despite the DRM fiasco, it's definitely worth picking up.
It gives you something just as bad... (Score:5, Informative)
it infects your system with a rootkit.
That alone is a reason you shouldn't buy it. Just Say No to DRM.
How to Build a Better Being (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Tl;dr; (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Worth picking up, but... (Score:5, Informative)
Use a pirated version.
Sometimes, life itself is sarcasm...
It's a Family game (Score:5, Informative)
I'm withholding judgement until I play each stage, but so far my kids have loved the creature creator aspect as well as exploring to see what's over the next ridge.
I think they did a great job leveraging the content that everyone is creating and put it back into the game. I'm big into creating Neverwinter Nights modules, so I'm familiar with some of the traditional methods. This new approach is very innovative (if perhaps slightly devious). I love the fact that players create content as part of the game, which then gets shared with everyone else.
Re:Worth picking up, but... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Worth picking up, but... (Score:5, Informative)
Just wait for it to hit the consoles. Unless it fails so hard that it doesn't get ported. But that is unlikely. DRM SecuROM type tactics are killing pc gaming more than piracy.
Re:It matters not what the review says (Score:5, Informative)
SecuRom is awful, as is the stance of most major game companies today.
Go with someone like Stardock or try Mount & Blade if you want a satisfying, DRM free gaming experience with great support and no hassle.
Re:It maters not what the review says (Score:3, Informative)
You can shuffle back to your manager at EA and tell him I said that.
Don't Play On A PC (Score:2, Informative)
The same install DVD will install to either your PC or a Mac. If you don't like what it does on a PC, put it on a Mac.
Re:Worth picking up, but... (Score:5, Informative)
Reloaded takes care of you [nfohump.com]
My own review (Score:5, Informative)
I guess this is a good place to link to my own review [slashdot.org], which isn't as good as this one, and so did not make the front page.
Re:Slashvertisement? (Score:3, Informative)
Already did it myself.
Re:Sure (Score:5, Informative)
spore works on wine, using 1.13 + special patch that can be found in wine's appdb in spore creature creator section. It runs very well.
Re:It gives you something just as bad... (Score:5, Informative)
If there were a port for either the 360 or PS3, I would have no problems picking it up. The only "console" port right now is a DS version which only does the "creature" part of the game.
Re:It gives you something just as bad... (Score:5, Informative)
DRM is not the same as a rootkit. *One time*, sony used an _actual_ rootkit as part of their DRM, and now thousands of ill-informed noobs think they are the same thing. If you want a demonstration of the differences, I would be happy to install a real rootkit; please post your IP address and I will begin the lesson.
doesn't live up to expectations (Score:3, Informative)
following the growth of a species from the cellular level to galactic domination was an ambitious goal
It's a good game, but it's still a fairly traditional combination of elements: a bit arcade style action, a bit of Civilization. You can also think of it as a bunch of different variants of a game all rolled into one.
However, it's not the artificial life game that it could have been, and it has nothing to do with species or evolution. Furthermore, there isn't a lot of variation in the game play depending on your choices, so in some ways, it's actually worse than many other games.
Re:No Mention of Creature Creator (Score:5, Informative)
Re:It gives you something just as bad... (Score:4, Informative)
Unfortunately, despite the 'protest', many people are:
"Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1 in Video Games"
http://www.amazon.com/Spore-Pc/dp/B000FKBCX4/ref=pd_ts_vg_1?ie=UTF8&s=videogames [amazon.com]
Re:Good review (Score:3, Informative)
MOD PARENT UP.
The review was a bit too glowing in my opinion. DRM is never okay, but DRM on top of a nerfed evolution engine and a painful UI is too much for me.
It goes farther than the controls, too - unless I'm missing something, you can't select a group of attacking units in the tribal, creature or civilization stages and change their attack focus to a new unit without clicking on it, which combined with a camera that slides between HUGELY FAR AWAY and UP YOUR UNITS' NOSES, makes it hard to differentiate between your units and the baddies; you spend a lot of unfortunate time standing around and getting attacked by creatures you can't see.
The lag in the space portion, like the parent said, is totally unforgivable - every time you land on a planet, it lags, and the game essentially is about taking off from one planet and flying to and landing on another one. you do it A LOT, which means the game freezes for a good5-10 seconds every minute or two, and lags in the first 30 seconds on a planet, which wouldn't be SO bad except you're working under a timer most of the time.
It's the space portion's navigational interface that really gets to me, though: the galaxy is represented by a rotatable 2d representation of 3d space, and your space ship's range is represented by a 2d ring. You can only travel to planets within that ring. The problem is, unless I'm missing something, that space is 3d, so some planets inside the ring are actually really the hell far away on the Z-axis and there's no easy way to tell this without madly clicking around on every planet in the ring until you find one that takes you somewhere, though it might be (again because of the z-axis thing) in the wrong direction. Which is fine but, again, you're working UNDER A TIMER.
DRM stupidity aside, the whole thing feels rushed to me, and not beta-tested at all. WTF, Will?
It's Worse than That (Score:5, Informative)
The cell stage plays very much like Flow, with the addition of the stripped-down creature creator (which basically takes the place of traditional 'powerups').
The creature stage... oh god, fuck me running, it plays like a bad MMO. If you go off exploring, you're fucked-- the complexity, toughness and aggressiveness of creatures increases with the distance you head out from your first nest, and moving to the next nest is thematically identical to the process of binding yourself to a respawn point. Combat and interaction depend on pressing the same four buttons over and over again, waiting for cooldowns, just like you might in WoW or any of its antecedents. Even making friends requires you to literally level your creature up, earning DNA points so that you can add bits that boost your charm rating so you can make tougher friends. Despite all of that customization, there are basically only two tracks you can move down: a fighting carnivore (because meat doesn't grow on trees) or a social herbivore (because buying both charm bits and combat bits is prohibitively expensive).
I haven't made it past the Creature stage because, like your average MMO, draw distances are terrible and your rate of movement is worse. Even the people that I know who enjoy the game describe the later sections as stripped-down RTS and 4X games, more proof-of-concept demos than anything else.
Wright's come out and said that Spore will be getting expansion packs, like the Sims, but 'different'. I suspect that we'll be asked to fork over another thirty bucks every few months for some actual depth of gameplay, rather than the biological equivalent to Sims fashions and furniture.
Re:Don't Play On A PC (Score:5, Informative)
They ported SecureROM to the mac. Apparently it's just as invasive on that too (at least one person claims to have had his machine trashed by it).
Also if you don't like it on the PC and install it on the Mac that's two of your three installs gone already. One more attempt and it's down to begging EA for the rights to play the game using premium rate phone lines.
Re:Worth picking up, but... (Score:1, Informative)
And if the DRM completely hoses your system, you have to accept that EA is in no way responsible for the loss of time or data.
Re:Worth picking up, but... (Score:5, Informative)
Windows rarely asks for activation and is very lenient on what you do to your machine. Reactivating is a local rate or free phone call depending on where you are.
Spore can be installed exactly 3 times. Upgrading anything like a video card is counted as a reinstallation. Uninstalling does *not* count either. The only way to get it to work again after is to call EA on a premium rate phone call and beg for one more chance to install the game you paid for. Several people have tried to do this already... they failed, and were told to *write a begging letter* to EA just to install the game they'd bought a few days previously.
Re:It maters not what the review says (Score:4, Informative)
Comment needs to remain upmodded, as it looks like the backlash (presumably from EA) has begun. Apparently, Gamespot is now censoring reviews critical of DRM [amazon.com]. Does EA buy advertising here at Slashdot?
Re:Worth picking up, but... (Score:4, Informative)
Except:
1. SecureROM will detect you're in a VM and barf.
2. If you get past that, the graphics acceleration even in the latest VMWare isn't that fast - certainly not fast enough for a new game.
Ars technica review (Score:3, Informative)
Re:It's not a game.... (Score:2, Informative)
Besides, while I love Will Wright, and I *want* to support him -- he knew what EA would do, I'm sure he was aware of the DRM scheme, and he let it go in.
You'd be surprised. Developers and designers have practically no say in DRM issues if they're going with a big publisher.
While it's a neat 'toy', for a *gamer* like myself it's ridiculous.
Whether one is a *gamer* or just a gamer -- aren't all games just neat toys, in the end? A form of mental masturbation that lets us pass the time in a fashion which we find pleasurable?
Re:newerakb (Score:3, Informative)
Except you've given money to the scumbags that want to install malware on your PC, so they've won. They have their sale, and the shareholders are happy.
Re:It maters not what the review says (Score:1, Informative)
Just to give a big ol' Fuck You to their DRM I pirated it the old fashioned way. I stole it from walmart.
Re:Rootkit? WTF are you talking about? (Score:5, Informative)
SecuROM compromises multiple portions of the OS, including insinuating itself into the system to try to prevent you from using other programs (like ISO loaders). It also phones home constantly [wikipedia.org] and has the ability to launch code that it feels like using, invisible to the user.
I'd say that pretty much fucking defines a rootkit.
And there are many LEGITIMATE reasons to use an ISO loader - such as having a laptop that uses extra power to run the DVD drive, wasting time and battery power to use the DVD drive as an expensive dongle.
If you want decent battery life to game on the go, the most common method is a secondary battery pack that replaces your optical media drive - meaning you HAVE to switch to either an ISO loader or else a no-CD crack for games that are trying to use the media drive that way.
Re:It gives you something just as bad... (Score:1, Informative)
Open source doesn't mean that you can't sell it, just that no one is going to buy it.
Re:Worth picking up, but... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:It matters not what the review says (Score:5, Informative)
In particular, Galactic Civilizations II, The Political Machine, and Sins of a Solar Empire
Or you could just go to stardock.com and find the full list for yourself.
Re:It gives you something just as bad... (Score:2, Informative)
Funnny, but... a 4 billion lines text file that is just over 1Gb ? I don't think so...
Re:Snake oil (Score:3, Informative)
Now, you don't need to be some uber-leet 0day warez nut to get your hands on cracked software. Any idiot with a cablemodem can get it. I'm not going to look for it, but I'd bet there is a torrent of this game out there already. All that kid really has to do is wait a week or so and it will be out there.
The torrent was actually posted in the previous Spore story [slashdot.org], making your point quite well.
Re:Rootkit? WTF are you talking about? (Score:4, Informative)
Any application that you run on your computer has the ability to launch code that it feels like using. In your linked article, I see no mention that SecureROM phones home, other than when you are using protected software. And what pretty much fucking defines a rootkit is that the software package intentionally allows non-authorized users to obtain escalated privileges. I've seen no evidence that SecureROM permits that kind of access.
Again, you should NOT abuse industry terms to promote your agenda. My feelings on DRM are irrelevant on this one.
Re:Sure (Score:2, Informative)
No, its a lifetime installation limitation.
Re:It's not a game.... (Score:4, Informative)
Ok, how about this then:
I started playing it yesterday at work (but after work). Ok, started off with a little plant-eating cell. Swam around eating plant bits, got some upgrades, more plant bits, ran away from some things that electrocuted me, and then... whoosh, I've evolved!
So now I need a creature adapted for land. I throw out literally EVERYTHING I've done to my creature to date, since I no longer need flagella, I need a real mouth and some legs, etc. So now I'm creating a whole new character all over again.
Great. So now I have a character. I wander over and befriend another tribe, which is a boring game of 'click the button, then when it is available again, click it again'. Sucks. Ok, so let's kill things instead, that's always fun, and there's something ironically wasteful about a race of murderous herbivores that I liked.
So I went to kill some things. I have four attacks, numbered 1-4 on the keyboard. Bite, charge, swipe, and spit. So what do I do? Spit at a creature to lure it away from the pack, gank it with my posse, then pull another one. Guess what I'm playing? Will Wright's version of World of Warcraft. I spent the next hour grinding a MMO, except offline, with no social aspect or sense of accomplishment.
So then after that's done, I evolve again into a tribe. Now I get rid of all the things that made my warlike herbivores so great at what they do, and give them things that make them better at walking around and carrying tools. I've basically created a new creature from scratch - again.
And now I'm playing an RTS, except dumbed down. I send my people to gather food, and use it to make babies and buy huts with maracas so I can go impress another tribe, which lets my hut grow more so I can make more babies and give them more maracas to impress more tribes.
BORING. I'm sorry, but it's completely fucking boring. I kept waiting for it to 'click', for it to suddenly get interesting and for me to see what all the hype was about. I never did. Now I don't care. I might play with it just to create new creatures and see what kind of death machine I can create, but it's largely (as a sibling poster mentions) just a 'collection of loosely connected mini-games'.
If the game gets better at the space stage, that's great, but forcing me to go through several largely irrelevant stages just to get to 'the meat' is a waste of my fucking time.
Re:It gives you something just as bad... (Score:3, Informative)
I've been hearing the same thing about "3 years" being the life cycle on a console, but I bought mine and three years are almost up and it's still going strong. According to your post, I've got another three years to go! :)
Yes, it just works. In a way the average geek doesn't understand. It just works in a way you pull it out of the packaging, plug it in, and anyone from a 4 year old to Grandpa can be playing games in a few minutes. Games don't lock up or crash because your video drivers are out of date, you don't have IMs popping up to knock your game back down to the taskbar the very moment you almost slayed the dragon, etc. There's a whole different level of simplicity when it comes to consoles.
The 360 is also $199 at Walmart. Sure, you can drop a lot more, but that's just like with the games themselves. So what? This has always been the case. With legacy support, it's not a very big deal (all my xbox1 stuff works fine on the 360).