PDA

View Full Version : [OT] Spore



Hell-demon
09-09-08, 00:15
I got this game recently and I have to say it is a huge dissapointment.

The game starts off promising but just decends into mediocrity and frustration. Which is unfortunate as there is a lot of promise in this game. There is fun to be had making your own creature and vehicles but that's all.

I made a race of blue, hunchbacked, shark people. I decided to create a race of murderous bastards who killed and ate their way to the top. This was achieved easily by equiping the appropriate limbs etc. However if you just want a creature based on looks alone prepare to be in trouble. The creature stage plays out like a a bad team based rpg. You kill "bosses" and collect limbs, but if you want your creature/s to have a better edge you must get rid off aesthetics and instead improve your stats or else you and your pals will get crushed.

The controls get worse with each stage and the A.I gets bad too. The tribal stage had me clicking furiously for tribe members to get stuck into battle but instead they watched the other tribe members fighting while standing behind them.

Eventually you have the civilisation stage which entails you making vehicles and buildings. This is when the creation tools get sloppy. You can pretty much have a grey slab as an entertainment facility and your race will love it. You can mash any old bollocks together and you've made a vehicle. There's no real point in making them as the civilisation stage is really short.

After this stage you have the most talked about stage: Outer Space. The controls also take a nose dive and you'll be getting around by use of the mouse wheel. I must admit I was taken back by the scope of it. You have a huge spiralling universe teaming with life. But you are brought back down to Earth when you see the bad gameplay choices.

I had set myself out to be a cruel race exterminateing everything and my hardwork was soon undone. For soem reasons other civilisations can have fleets while you can't. This makes things difficult when raiding a planet and being raided yourself. No sooner do you destroy one fleet another one comes up. You have to get by making allegiances with other races and doing fed ex missions. I went against my choices of being a bad ass because to get another ship to join you must be allied to a race and they will give you one of their ships, which will be destroyed the next time you land somewhere else. It's just not easy defending your planet with one ship or attacking another planet with one ship alone.

So I get penalised for choosing an aggressive race. The game is about choice and I feel like the game is punishing me. I have to do things I don't want to do to progress in the game. I have to trade and terraform to get anywhere I cant be free to do what I want because I wasn't given any tools or because I'm greatly outnumbered.

You progress by earning badges, which unlock more abilities, which you must buy from other races, which cost money, but you have to do more missions to get money. There is a terraforming element but you have to buy the tools to paint and change everything.

It seems like every stage is a different game to entertain different players but each one is shallow. The cell stage is like Flow, the creature stage is like a brightly coloured Diablo with stats and bad pathfinding team mates, tribal stage is a poor mans strategy game, civilisation is trivial and space is just monotonous.

Try it if you want. Post your opinions and comments.

CMaster
09-09-08, 01:47
Some late-night-can't sleep stream of conciousness posting here:

It's currently polling 86 on Metacritic (http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/pc/spore) - not bad, but not the 95+ everyone was expecting. Tellingly, the user scores are also significantly lower. A theme running through a lot of reviews is "great application, great acheivements, great scope. So-so game." A lot of the time it looks like the Spore team have over-streched themselves. It will unquestionably sell well especially with all the marketing money EA are throwing at it (I don't watch much TV at all. I've seen 5 adverts or so for it in the last 3 days).

All in all, it reminds me very strongly of Black and White. Fantastically clever, does wonderful things that no ever game has done. Just isn't that fun to play. (Amusingly, Molyneux's follow up, Fable struck me as exactly the opposite. Thoroughly lacking in innovation, but great fun) I will reserve my judgement until I actually played it mind.

L0KI
09-09-08, 02:01
I got to the creature stage as an all aggressive race.

/me starts again after reading Hell Demon's post!

So far, I'm entertained, but not overwhelmed... I will of course keep you updated. ;)

Fega
09-09-08, 02:45
Well, I just finished the game (And by that I mean I stopped playing the space stage after I got to the centre of the galaxy.)

The game definitely has no set ending. Once your in space you play until you have all the tools etc. I managed to get everything done, but actually conquering all of space is pretty impossible (Unless you want to spend the rest of your life playing the game)

Getting to the centre of the galaxy is one big hurdle too. The alien "Super race" that controls every planet in the centre are impossible to befriend, and fighting them is hard because they control probably 2000+ planets.

I made a mad (clicking) dash to the centre and got a nice movie played to me. Then I turned it off.

Waste of my time: Sorta, it was fun at the start.
Worth buying: Probably not.

Tantta
10-09-08, 00:40
Hmm i was actually considering buying this game but lot people tends to say it was somewhat disappointment, so maybe ill just save the money this time.

Necpock
10-09-08, 07:37
I'm taking my time with the game, playing it as casually a possible. Collecting everything as I go along...its pretty fun and a great idea... so far.

I rushed into tribal stage though (luckily i DIDN'T SAVE) AND caps, and to be honest, I didn't like the RTS feel tribal gave, since... meh. I'm gonna play it for as long as I can before I get bored.

I'm gonna buy Mass Effect on payday, because according to someone, ;) its amazing :D

Hell-demon
10-09-08, 11:16
You're just buying it so you can have sex with the blue aliens. Admit it. Everyone else buys it for that reason - to pork blue aliens.







SEX!

L0KI
10-09-08, 11:20
I reached the Space stage - and whilst it's probably the most fun part of the game, I have to say, I'm bored.

I probably won't play it again. Nice idea, but not what I expected. As CMaster predicted, I just didn't enjoy playing it.

Hell-demon
10-09-08, 13:11
It seems like your playing 5 mini games. 5 poorly executed mini games at that. I never felt like I acomplished anything and the space stage is the final nail in the coffin as it is full of grind and repetition. You can't realistic control the galaxy. If you did it would amass months of your life dissapearing. Even if you did take it over then what?

The game feels like a second job. Also the "ending" is just stupid, trying to be cute but missing the mark and the reward for reaching the centre of the galaxy is shit.

You aren't given godly powers or omnipotence but a terrerforming device which can be only used 42 times.

L0KI
10-09-08, 13:28
To change the subject slightly - has anyone ever come accross any truly brilliant economy/god based games that can be played multiplayer!

My friend and I used to play Settlers/Civ3/Age of Empires 2&3/Starcraft etc...

We tried Europa Universalis, but it just didn't feel fun.

Tropico is suprisingly entertaining as a single player - but I'd be interested to know if anyone knows of any decent games like this that can be played multiplayer.

Hell-demon
10-09-08, 13:34
Sins of a Solar Empire?


Try Galactic civilisations 2.


That game is good.

Captainrynor2
17-09-08, 21:20
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/218-Spore

i must say i was expecting an awsome game and it was for the first 5 hrs, but now i havnt touched it since.

Saiyuki-
18-09-08, 05:33
ot: I love the word bollocks lol. :D

Apocalypsox
18-09-08, 06:08
Im with captain. I enjoyed it for about five hours thoroughly, but i have not touched it since then. Space age wasn't my kind of thing. Too much running around.

Omnituens
18-09-08, 06:09
The space stage was not well thought out - if you make an alliance, it becomes more of a hinderence than a help. They are always like, wah wah wah my planets under attack, and im all like, WTF pwn them with your space lazor.

MUCH easier/fun to drop medium bombs from low orbit and and remove them from the galaxy.

rob444
18-09-08, 14:50
Cell stage looked promising and it was, too bad it was so short. I had hoped you could be there for a longer period of time and find more than 6 items. Creature stage was fun for like 15 minutes tops, then it becomes a problem and you and your bloody fucked up allies gets stuck in slopes etc - hopefully you had the jump ability! Tribal stage looked fun but it lacked a lot of content, it was way to simple and it felt like I finished it under 20 minutes. Civilization stage was half fun, it was just annoying to have different kind of units in this game and the airplanes I never used sucked, ground vehicles ftw!
Space stage... It's fun at the beginning but then it gets very repetitive and you have to memorize which of your planets are actually producing spice so you don't waste time traveling to a galaxy with empty planets. And when you are trying change the T level of a planet, you will in almost all cases be attacked by vicious pirates or some virus is spreading on one of your allies planets, this is just pure annoying. I am now rich as fuck and I don't know what to do with the money, I've wiped out one of my allies because he was an ass trying to get money from me all the time. My quest? To reach the center of the galaxy. I've never reached it because I got bored after 2 hours in space.

Dissapointing game but I predicted it a long time ago so it's not a surprise to me.

Now give me fable 2.

Hell-demon
18-09-08, 14:52
The centre of the galaxy is the biggest kick in the bollocks.

L0KI
18-09-08, 14:53
I gave my copy away, to my younger sister.

It's shite.

Hell-demon
18-09-08, 15:28
If EA hadn't been douche bags about everything the game wouldn't be so bad if it was inhabited by penis monsters. Least I think it would be amusing.