"I believe that Spore has achieved what it set out to do. -Jeremiah Brown"

Guest's Score:

9.0

Before writing this review, I had to reorient myself since I had unknowingly allowed an entire weekend to pass without leaving the chair parked in front of my computer. My Monday morning alarm went off and snapped me out of the Spore-induced zombified state that I was in. The feeling I had when I realized that days had passed since I sat down was... disconcerting, but this was evidence as to how engrossing this game is.

Spore, if you've managed to inexplicably avoid the media craze, is best described as a life simulator. You guide your race of life from the smallest cells to the rulers of the galaxy, customizing every little bit along the way to your exacting preferences.

At its most basic level, the game can be split into two halves: the space stage, and everything else leading up to the space stage. I know that this is a bit of oversimplifying, but this is where one of Spores problems comes out. The first four out of the five stages of the game go by really fast. The first time I started the game, I made it to the space stage in three hours. Three. Then the space stage hits you and the game really starts.

The one big thing about this game that everyone is raving about is the customization program. This is, bar none, the best in-game custom content creator I've ever seen. There are a few niggling annoyances with getting exactly what you want, but they're negligible. When playing the first two stages, most of the pieces need to be unlocked before they can be used. Also, you need to earn enough "DNA" points to afford the pieces as well. In the three latter stages, you're free to invent buildings, land/sea/air vehicles, and spaceships. You can also customize your race's clothing. The things you can create are only limited by your imagination. More unique or specific pieces will hopefully be added to the game in future patches/expansion packs.

Before I get into the stages individually, I'll first cover the results of these stages. How you go about advancing from stage to stage will determine what bonuses you will get in the following stages. This causes your actions in the beginning (and anywhere else) to have lasting ramifications on your game. If you're aggressive, then you'll get bonuses to combat and weapons. Bonuses to diplomacy etc. if you go the opposite, peaceful route. To me, this is one of the only two purposes of the first four stages: determine what style of empire you'll have in the end, and the other being to customize what your race will look like (since what parts your race is made out of has absolutely no effect in the later stages of the game).

The first "Cell" stage is where you begin and it plays like Pac-Man without the maze. You swim around looking for food and eat to advance. Along the way, you'll pick up bits to add to your cell to make surviving easier. Once you've eaten enough, you'll get to the "Creature" stage, which is actually very similar to the cell stage in purpose, but it works differently. Instead of swimming around, you walk around, and you earn DNA the same way, just scaled up a bit. Now eating isn't quite enough, you need to either eliminate or befriend other species. After eating everything or making lots of friends, you'll advance to the "Tribal" stage, which is really just the creature stage redone as a Real-Time-Strategy game. You either eliminate other tribes or befriend them, again just going about it differently. Once you've killed or allied with the competition, the "Civilization" stage presents itself. Again, it's a sort of elaborated rehash of the previous stages, but done with a different play style, this time like the alluded Civilization series. Now, your race is the dominant species on the planet and you're going up against rival factions of your own race. However, this stage is the first time you see the three available empire styles; Warlike, Religious, or Business. How you played your first three stages will determine which of the three you are, you have no instant choice, it's all based on your history. Warlike races will kill the competition, Religious ones will convert them, while the Business ones will simply buy them out (my favourite strategy).

People will say that I have oversimplified, and I freely admit that I have and this oversimplification is not a negative one, merely my attempt at fitting all this game has to offer in one small review. These first four stages are a heck of a lot of fun and the game wouldn't have a hope of doing as well as it has without them. Actually, I'd have to say that I had the most fun in the first four stages of the game.

Once you've conquered your own planet, you then move to the "Space" stage, which is the real meat of the game as you will easily spend at least ten times the amount of time here than in the other stages. The time you can play the space stage is actually unlimited and you can keep playing after you've finished the story.

The main reason for spending so much time in this stage is because of the sheer size of the galaxy, which literally contains hundreds if not thousands of randomly generated systems to explore and colonize. One cool thing about the space stage is that it gives you a chance to really play exactly as you want, since you are no longer limited by your choices made previously (which only give you bonuses to certain things, not limitations). To me, there are three grandiose goals to achieve in this stage; Eliminate all other races in the galaxy (through whatever means), Colonize and terraform every planet, and to find Earth, which is really in the game somewhere orbiting its properly named star Sol. As a word of warning though, the space stage is much harder than the previous stages.

I believe that Spore has achieved what it set out to do, to be the game that anyone can play and enjoy at least a piece of. Everyone I know that has tried it, from whatever background, has really liked the game. It's immensely fun, totally engrossing, long lasting and (rarest of all) relaxing. So do yourself a favour and buy this game, or at least give it some time to win you over, and then buy it anyway.

-Jeremiah Brown

Pros

Cons

Bottom Line

Guest's Score:

9.0