Ok, the game isn't out and I haven't played it. But reading early reviews of the game has reassured my initial impressions of the game. Through all its charm and intricacy Spore gives us routinely simplistic game play elements not meant for your average gamer, and certainly not your average PC gamer.
Spore may have creativity in spades but what it appears to lack judging from early reviews is game play elements worth its salt. Starting off as bacteria Spore is at its simplest (which should come as no surprise) as you set out running away from larger bacteria and eating smaller ones to then get out of the primordial soup.
From here you reach land and interact with other species really just trying to keep things level. With only one or two game play options talking and eating Spore continues to be simple.
You then get to the tribal stage where your new goal is to ally or destroy other tribes around you. This is RTS at its most basic with only one resource to gather and two options of ally or attack. Snore!
The games next stage is the civilization stage which, really is just another way of saying tribal stage with a prettier city-scape.
Lastly, you reach the space stage where you can travel to distant galaxies destroying or creating where you see fit. Your only real options here are terrifying a planet, taking it over, or inhabiting it freely, or destroying it. This last stage is what I predicted to be the most boring of all, but actually gives you the most options other than the creature creator of course. But my hopes overall were destroyed when I learned this was not an online experience.
When I first heard that we could travel to other planets I thought we'd be interacting with other online users at the same time. I couldn't have been more wrong. The other creatures that inhabit these planets are ones that are downloaded in the Spore system or ones that are pre-made. So essentially you're still dealing with the computer AI.
So that's it. The game completes here and then you are given the option to start over at any of the stages mentioned above. Bacteria, harvest?, Tribal, Civilization, and Space.
Spore appears to be exactly what I thought it would be. The charm in it is how well the creature designer works, and then you essentially get to watch your little dude walk around and do stuff for a while. Not really a game by any standard in my mind. Not really entertaining either. The limited options this game gives the user screams 'casual gamer.'
*Evolve this @#$%!*
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