I Almost Forgot… Spore
September 28, 2008 8:53 pm Games for Fun, Gaming
Someone asked me the other day about what games I was playing lately. I rattled off a list, but I completely forgot about Spore.
Spore. The game that many gamers (including myself) have been looking forward to for years. I remember watching the 2005 GDC video that came out which was the first public view of Spore. Everyone was amazed. You could start as a cell and evolve all the way to a space faring civilization. Plus, you could customize just about every facet of your creature along the way. Pretty inspiring stuff.
More videos of Spore surfaced every year and every year the project was delayed. After watching a recent TV special on the Discovery channel, I learned that Maxis worked on Spore for five years. Many games I play that get 2-3 years of love are usually awesome, so imagine how excited I was when I learned they put five total years of work into Spore. Plus, Will Wright is at the top of the industry when it comes to game design. The guy who gave us SimCity and The Sims can do wrong (hell, I liked SimFarm and SimEarth as well).
I was so excited that I grabbed the creature creator for Spore early and pre-ordered the game from Direct 2 Drive. Hell, $55 for one of the best games ever would be a good deal I thought. I made about 20-30 creatures, making one or two a night, all while thinking about how awesome it will be to put them into the game in a few months.
So, Spore finally comes out. After a two hour download and a 20 minute install, I get to play. But what’s this? I can’t use any of my creatures I made? Oh, right, I have to start as a cell. Okay, fine. But why is the sound all staticy? Oh, I have to download new sound drivers. Wait, where’d all my creatures go? They’re not showing up locally, but they’re still connected to me somehow through my online account.
I’m starting to remember now why I stopped playing PC games so much.
In any event, the first night I played for about three hours straight, just playing the cell stage and messing about in the creature stage. The best part about the cell stage is it’s “Katamariness.” I loved seeing large creatures in the background then finally surpassing them in size and fighting them.
So, the cell stage is pretty simple. Eat dots. I find myself feeling like the game is pretty simple at the creature stage as well. It’s crazy that I just add legs to a cell and now I’m on land. Where is the underwater stage shown at GDC 2005? Anyway, at the creature stage either you kill other creatures or press 1,2,3 or 4 in order to mimic another creatures actions to befriend them. Somehow this makes your creature smarter. Also, I’m picking up new “parts” for myself off the ground in the form of shiny bone piles. What? How is this at all like evolution? Where are all the deep and interactive systems Will Wright is famous for? I’m just pressing a few buttons here…
Okay, no worries. I’m getting to the tribal stage so, “Bring on the depth!” Bzzzt. More of the same. Either I’m killing tribes or befriending them. Optionally you can domesticate an animal which didn’t seem to have any impact on anything. Also, all the tribes (except one) around me hate me, so I’m constantly getting my shit stolen and fighting with other tribes. I go to another tribe to make peace and they light me up. I was going for a peace-loving race, but the shit hit the fan. I just ended up killing anything that moved since it was much easier and much less frustrating.
Woo! The civilization stage! Here come the intertwined systems! Wrong! Instead, here are 40 more editors to build every vehicle and building you could ever need in your empire. I just wanted to keep playing, but I didn’t want to half-ass build shit either because that looks lame. So, now I’m presented with the chore of building my City hall, the houses, factories, entertainment centers, vehicles that my people will use. Oh, and you get to build the planes, tanks, and boats shortly thereafter. But only after you dress up your character some more- in another editor.
As for the game play for the civ stage, welcome to Tribal Stage 2.0 or Creature Stage 3.0. Yes, you can either blow up shit or win over (through trading) other cities. That’s about it. Eventually it’s over and maybe an “Epic” creature will show up and stomp around.
Space. I must admit I’m a big space junkie. I love just about any game set in space since its the last really unexplored frontier for Humanity. Plus its just so damn big and awesome. I loved Spaceward Ho! back in the day and Master of Orion II was pretty sweet. Tradewars was a BBS game that ate waaay too much of my time.
Anyway, I build my sweet ship and take my mans into space. There’s a little of story going on with some race called the “Grox.” I also learn about trading “spice” and I hear the M.U.L.E. music in the trading menu, so I’m digging it. But wait? What is there to do here? Oh, I can either trade with the aliens of a planetary system or fight with them to take it over. Sound familiar?
Upgrading the ship is cool and all, but where are my fleets of ships? Everyone else has them, why not me? Why do I only get one ship to safe guard my entire empire with? Why do I have to be the one to fly around on gopher missions for other races to win their approval while single handedly fighting off pirates from my home world? Why do I have to build every single colony and micromanage it by hand? Why do I have to stop every single biological disaster with the only ship I’ll ever get?
Space is also another stage where it’s just easier to kill everything than try to trade with it. You’re also forced into combat situations so often that you never get a moment to trade anyway (this might have been fixed in a patch, but I already installed the “Space is Fun” package to stop all the raids and eco-disasters). So what else is there to do? Flying to the galactic core is a challenge on its own, since it reduces the distance you’re able to fly and you’re always getting attacked by the Grox, who happen to live there. I ended up just terraforming their planets (since they’re like the Borg, they live on barren worlds so terraforming them kills them) and making a colony there. Repeat this 20 times and you’ll make it to the center. Then you end up meeting “Steve” which is a UFO with a horn on top (is this supposed to be funny?) and he gives you the “Staff of Life” which allows you to terraform a world to the most livable kind of planet (T3) in one shot. Not bad, but you only get 42 uses (Hitchikers reference).
Then you fly away and are owned some more by the Grox. Oh hey, you can also check out Earth, which is uninhabited by anyone except some random creatures.
Sure, you can upgrade your ship and terraform some planets, but whats the point? The cool thing about SimCity was trying to grow your city as big as possible while trying to manage all the various systems in play (water, power, crime, taxes, transportation, etc.) You could also challenge yourself once you got good at the game by trying to build the city up under different circumstances. In the Sims, players take enjoyment from picking jobs for the sims, decking out their pad, engaging in social interactions and so on. Basically, trying to make a bunch of systems “play nice” to reach whatever goal the player has in mind.
Spore is missing all of those system interactions. I just don’t get it. I was expecting so much more and was let down by the gameplay. There no challenge in taking over other worlds and growing your empire. Trade for X amount of time, have X amount of cash on hand and you get a system. Or, maybe you could just fire away, click a button and it’s yours. Repeat until bored. The same can be said for all the stages. Trade or fight during the civ phase. Play music or fight during the tribal stage. Mimic or fight during the creature stage. Eat green dots or fight during the cell stage. Did I mention that fighting take little skill?
Spore is filled with these binary choices. Once you get to the space stage you get one ship in a huge galaxy for your civilization which you can deck out, but you still only have binary choices to make when it comes to expanding your empire. Not what I’d call a gaming revolution by any stretch of the imagination.
I have to say I’m extremely disappointed for what was supposed to be a huge leap in gaming. Nothing stood out for me after playing Spore which made me think the experience was totally awesome. For me, Spore was a forgettable experience. I don’t see myself playing it again. Maybe Spore was just over-hyped, or maybe my expectations were too high. Maybe it just wasn’t that fun.
At least the editors are kinda fun.