Spore – Quick Take
More to come review-wise. And I have one solid commitment from a next-generation Shears, Next Generation, to contribute his impressions of the game.
First though, is this a Spore usergroup, way out in front of the game’s release by, oh, 15 years or so? These visuals could have been taken straight from the game. I wonder if these mooks would survive into the Civilization phase.
As I’m sure you know the game has five phases, Cell, Creature, Tribe, Civilization and Space, each with the animale you create building on the last, so in some respoects it is a strategy campaign game with scenarios that carry your base characteristics over from one section to the next. Right now your poster is working on the second, Creature, stage. Does the combat in this phase remind anyone else of that old Pokemon Stadium?
The creatures you create can have an infinite variety, eventually, but to start you are given the tightest of choices, a very binary herbivore or carnivore. We’re sure this was intentional. The rich game play to follow builds on this simple decision and neither choice appears to be in any way limiting.
Lance is standing here talking to me just now and senses that there may be infinite zoomability in the Space stage. He may be right. We’ll see when we get there but the game definitely qualifies for the title (and inconsistent themes) of this site. Your creature creation in the game is for sure Infinity Bound.
Again, more to come. With a special post commenting on the recent Slate articale just dripping with disdain for the idea that the game might, heaven forfend, point to Intelligent Design. My word.
One other impression is that Sporeis not science or natural history. There is a lot of love in the game. There’s dancing and singing and courtship displays. All-in-all this is not as mushy as you’d think and handled well. Your creatures can get ahead with cooperation and alliances. Although sharp fangs and claws will always help, creature-wise.
First impression in the Shears household is a deep game with lots of replay value. The Space phase may even approach the Master of Orion space conquest/exploration game that we’ve been questing for with no luck for the last 10 or so years. We’ll see.
