I finally decided to break open the shrinkwrap to my copy of Spore recently, as I’ve started to get more annoyed with PC games that require the disc in the tray to play the game. While people have complained about the DRM that EA has put on games like Spore, hey if it allows me to play without the disc in tray, I’m not complaining.
The premise behind the game is that your little organism evolves through five different stages, and you play through each one but the fifth and final stage seems to be the lion’s share of the game. The five stages are as follows:
1. The Cell Stage, where you’re a single cell organism swimming around and trying to eat plants or weaker microbes while avoiding predators as well. As you eat more, you continue to grow and eventually you will reach the Creature Stage.
2. In the Creature Stage, your microbe has evolved to have legs and goes onto land. From here, you walk around and encounter other species. The main goal in this stage is to either befriend or kill other creatures, and once you’ve befriended or killed enough, your species moves into the Tribal Stage.
3. The Tribal Stage has your species working together as a tribe and collecting food to grow. The main goal in this stage is to either befriend or destroy other tribes to gain access to their technology. Once you have befriended and/or killed all other tribes, you reach the Civilization Stage.
4. In the Civilization stage, all the tribes in your area have assimilated and you can now build a city. But at the same time, other cities crop up and compete for the natural resources on the planet. Your main objective is to either ally with or convert these other cities through military force or religion. “Conquering” the planet leads to the final stage, Space.
5. While each of the four earlier stages are short sessions and can be beaten in under an hour, it seems like the Space stage can last dozens. This is because your planet has learned to travel in space, and has tons of galaxies to explore. You can spread your empire by colonizing other planets, go to war with other alien species, trade with them, ally with them, etc.
In a sense, the final stage has certain similarities to 4X strategy games such as Civilization and Sins of a Solar Empire, but you spend your time controlling one spaceship pilot instead of being the ruler of your civilization that tells everyone what to do or where to go. Also, Spore is nowhere near as deep as actual strategy games, as its focus is more on user creations. These planets and galaxies you visit could be populated with all sorts of species, buildings, or vehicles that other players have created, but from a gameplay standpoint they serve no deeper purpose. I’m already practically done with the game since there’s nothing exciting about the gameplay and each stage is a watered down version of games that “do it better”. But for those that enjoy discovering new user created species and the like, maybe Spore will keep you going for a long time…
I bought this game for my sis when it came out, and I ended up playing it for the most part. It was stupid easy, but then got to the Space Stage where the difficultly ramped up so I gave up lol.
haha looks like you and me both. and i agree with you – the first 4 stages were too simplified to be enjoyable if you were looking for gameplay depth – and the space stage was more annoying than enjoyable so i gave up then too.