(Guest starring Gonzo of the Muppets!)
MODERN GAMING
SporeDeveloper: Maxis
Publisher: EA Games
Year: 2008
Genre: Simulation
System: PC
Most videogames are wish fulfilment. We've always wanted to fly into outer space, become entrenched into a war, rule a criminal empire or beat the shit out of everyone. And then there is an entire genre of games where you are essentially a single powerful force, be that a mayor or even a god. Maxis, famous for the Sims series of games that do just that, has endeavoured to make your scope of omnipotent control even grander than before....by controlling life itself, in an even better looking format than SimLife.
Story - Whatever story is made, is the one you invent in your head for your creature. You are a tiny little cell who landed on a planet (of which you can pick several of at the start in the same manner of choosing as the start of Super Mario Galaxy, except you LIVE on the planet you pick), and must now work your way up the food chain of the planet along with every other creature that exists who are either allies, enemies or food. After that it's pretty much all you to deal with story-wise as the game pretty much gives you a whole canvas to create a history on.
(Your women. I want to buy your women.)
- Spore's main meat of gameplay lies in the nearly limitless customisations you can apply to your creatures. Starting at the Cell Stage you have the very small choices of giving it a mouth so it either eats plants, meat or both, as well as eyes and weapons and fins and such. As a cell you must eat to survive and gain DNA points that not only allow you to customise more features on your creature but also reach ever closer to walking on land.
After that you enter the Creature Stage whereby you are sentient enough as an animal but still need to reach that full human-ish brain, which you do by looking after your species. These duties include migrating to other nests as well as allying with or destroying other species. Allying with other species involves a Simon Says game of three actions to either Sing, Pose or Dance. Doing so correctly and being good enough with it allows you to be friends with the species.
Making a species extinct is of course a real-time battle system of three actions of varying strengths. Either way you go, you gain more DNA points to reach towards tribal sentience. Customising your creature is given more freedom now, however once you picked your species' diet in the Cell Stage, it will remain that way permanently so choose wisely. In the same manner, once you pass the Creature Stage, you will not be able to change your creature's physical form anymore, however you can change it to anything else you want during the Cell and Creature Stages by finding a mate and laying an egg, allowing you to create a new form.
The only thing that's an irritation from this point on is the sometimes clueless map system. A simple map shows you a ? if there is another tribe to encounter, as well as little icons for nests and fruit sources for vegetarians, a skull-n-crossbones for extinct tribes and a happy face for allied tribes. But if you meet a tribe and then get chased off without either allying with them or defeating them, you don't get told where exactly they were. They literally disappear from the goddamn map and you pretty much wander all over the place trying to find that cool-looking bird species again. This is in all honesty the only thing of Spore that irritated me, as well as the camera system which is mostly manual thankfully, not contributing any help to which direction you're pointing other than quick glances at the map.
(Why do push-ups while wearing sombreros? Sexual reasons)
While on the subject of permanent choices there is also another small matter of gameplay. Due to the diet of your creatures, you will possess certain attitudes more strongly than others over the course of the evolution, called Consequences. Being a predator makes you have more aggressive powers, which start from being powerful tribes right up to being military nations. Likewise herbivores become friendly peace-loving tribes who then become religious nations. And lastly the omnivores start as industrious tribes to become economic nations. So consider this when you create your species.
Next up is the Tribe Stage where it becomes a Black & White Lite except without annoying godly beasts or brainless mortals demanding your every finger twitch to mean SOMETHING to them. You build a tribe up to have up to 12 members, all of whom have a choice of three weapons to fight with, three musical instruments to socialise with, and the few other powers of healing and fishing. The same objective as the last stage, in that you must ally with or destroy other tribes, as well as defending your own which is more likely to be attacked, burned down or have food stolen from. You also can make a tribal attire for your clan ranging from a few masks and hats and such to body armour and accessories.
Next up comes the Civilisation Stage, where you can now build a city and not only deal with the trading of spice (with thankfully no fucking HUGE sandworms or David Lynch to deal with) but also of course, ally with or fight against other cities, some of which are even of your own species. Again the choices of Consequence increase more and more in your likely attitudes. There is also the awesome customisation of not only the City Hall to be the focal point of your nation, but also the city outfits and even the national anthem as well as your land, sea and air vehicles.
Lastly comes the Space Stage, where you can finally leave your planet behind to interact with other worlds for better or for worse. And here is where it gets rather awesome. You are literally in a universe with other Spore players, everyone's species are there on various planets ready to be encountered or exterminated. So yes, you can finally BE the alien invasion from SimCity but onto someone else.
And it gets better. The Space Stage plays almost exactly like Star Control II. You meet with other creatures to ally or fight with, explore planets for resources, specimens and rare artifacts, and modify your ship with various upgrades and even have allied ships join you. If you remember the Star Control games and loved them and wouldn't mind a simpler plotless copy of it, you're gonna enjoy this last stage a lot (especially since unlike Star Control 2, there's no fucking droids suddenly appearing to go "O HAI AMMA BLAST U!" and spray all over your scattered space debris).
However the fun may not last as long as you think. See, because there's a lot less to actually handle compared to the Sims (when in The Sims you had to manage someone not either shitting themselves, overeating themselves, burning the house down, losing their money, ending up alone and then there's Spore's matter of eating, evolving and surviving), it can be a relief to some but a letdown to others. As innovative as it is, it feels a little empty in the earlier stages, as if a lot more could have been added into this, perhaps a lot more control over your creatures' attitudes and patterns. It may be perhaps this game is more tuning towards the casual gamer than the more hardcore pathetic slabs of PC gamers made whose bodies are practically 82% cookie dough.
Not that it's a bad thing, after all it does still give a good experience, even though the rewards for your advancement are never that good until the Space Stage which are all upgrades, weapons, abilities and badges.
But the early stages of the game have rewards in the form of new parts to make your creature from. Even then there is not as wide a selection as we may have been lead to believe, especially during the Tribal and Civilisation stages. The Civilisation stages do nothing but add on one more column to your outfit selection. The customisation has been given a lot of selection for building things and creatures, but in terms of design, it's rather sparse sadly. Not only that but the early stages feel too short, they get interesting enough to become immersed in and by then it's off to the next stage. Of course you're allowed to go to the next stage whenever you want but when it is time, there's no more rewards which makes the experience not worth it.
But then it is a unique game, and as such it should be compared to the other simulation games, to which Spore is a wide shallow beach instead of the grand ocean that was the impression we all got. It's fun for a while running around and building sandcastles but eventually you'll stare wistfully at the sea and realise it's just no fun staying on the sand. Whether you want to swim or not is up to you, just as it depends on whether or not you'll enjoy Spore for scope rather than depth. The true depth of the game comes from the others who play it together, crossing over between users to see how they've built their worlds.
(Tribe School Musical)
Not that it's a bad thing, after all it does still give a good experience, even though the rewards for your advancement are never that good until the Space Stage which are all upgrades, weapons, abilities and badges.
But the early stages of the game have rewards in the form of new parts to make your creature from. Even then there is not as wide a selection as we may have been lead to believe, especially during the Tribal and Civilisation stages. The Civilisation stages do nothing but add on one more column to your outfit selection. The customisation has been given a lot of selection for building things and creatures, but in terms of design, it's rather sparse sadly.
Graphics - Considering the flexibility of the species creator, the graphics have to be given props for making everything move well, looking alive no matter if it has 8 mouths and two eyes for asscheeks. That said the detail of the world itself is not given too much attention, and understandably so because the world is not what you're looking at. The environment feels like something from a game in 2002 other than the living creatures themselves. The graphics are the weakest point of the game but it's not a problem, not when the creatures themselves give the world so much life you don't care how shoddy the world looks and how much the trees have such wonky shapes like they're out of that Jumanji cartoon but with brighter colours and blockier shapes....actually do any of Will Wright's games have good graphics? He seems to be one of those people who never put importance into graphics but rather gameplay. Which is fine but sometimes you need an update now and again just to get the immersion better. At least the space stage looks gorgeous, with a literal universe unfolding before you with each planet ready to be accessed.
(My empire will be simply FABULOUS and risquely-named!)
- Here's the interesting part. The music is generally very reflective of whatever stage you're in. Cell Stage has a rather floaty ambient music, Creature Stage has a more primitive tribal-sounding music, Tribal Stage has something more solid in its rhythm than its last stage's music, Civilisation stage is a little more futuristic and lastly there is Space Stage which as expected is very space-age. The music is merely all ambience, nothing more than to let you slip into the world.
Sound however is rather good. All the creatures have various voices depending on what mouth you gave them in their Cell Stage. At first it's nothing but animal honks and screeches similar to the animals of the real world. However when you reach the Tribal Stage, a language is there, which actually becomes noticeably more finite in Civilisation Stage. This is essentially the evolution of Simspeak, nothing but a funny-sounding technobabble that becomes more and more like a language over the course of the game. Which is fantastic.
Spore was expected to be to Will Wright what Super Mario Galaxy is to Shigeru Miyamoto. Considered as their magnus opus, their highest pinnacle of grand achievement to finally reach the size of a universe with their respective worlds. Unless Will Wright actually makes a Sims game involving different planets and each planet being as big as a full Sims game, this is his highest pinnacle of simulation games in terms of scope, but not depth.
It may be easier than the Sims games to go through to the final stage, it will certainly take around six hours or so, but the amount of customisations to creatures, replayability and the very fact anyone who plays Spore is connected in an actual universe of their own planets is nothing short of astonishing. Okay some may find this game to be too easy, especially the Civilisation stage which barely presents any real challenge of conquering other cities, but the game is fun, if you enjoy creating something without the level of difficulty that Black & White presents or so.
Fun and Innovation - 3Replayability - 3Gameplay - 3Presentation - 3"Videogames are bad for you? That's what they said about rock 'n' roll." - Shigeru Miyamoto
Hail Slither, The Eternal Champion!