Spore 2008 Game Review
0Spore was released in 2008 by Maxis. Despite being a revolutionary game, worthy in many aspects of heavy praise, I feel it is let down by some of the things that make it unique. Not so much by the scope of the game, but moreso that some of the stages seem much better thought out than others.
The game is played in several stages following a species you design, from the formation of life in the cell stage to extending out into the universe in the final stage of the game and is remarkable in that it covers a wide range of styles of gameplay, and for the most part it does this pretty well… if simplistically.
The first stage is the cell stage, and this is without doubt my favourite. I would genuinely love a version of the game that just kept in this style. You start out as a very basic multi cellular organism and either eat your way to the top of the food chain, flee from everything in sight whilst scavenging for plants or try to do both. You evolve your body as you play, growing bigger and stronger as the world changes around you. I generally play as carnivores, as they are the closest to my lifestyle. Though the omnivore is really the best of both worlds…
Eventually you grow to the point where you can swim to land and you enter the secondary stage, or creature stage. This feels like a strange combination of RPG and first person shooter, and you advance your species by finding remains, fighting with local creatures or making friends with them. This stage is weird because whilst I love fighting and ganking my way to the top, being friendly is genuinely the best approach.
These first two stages are vaguely reminiscent of EVO, search for Eden which also features you growing from a simple life form into one of the stronger beings on the planet.
The third stage is the tribal stage. Whilst some people can probably play the friendly vegan pacifist route, I like to fight my way to the top against other neighbouring tribes as I find it’s generally the most intense way to play. Peaceful interactions let’s this stage down as I feel it makes things too easy. So war it must be! Nothing beats the simple thrill of trying to survive whilst being repeatedly raided by people who are often tougher than you. Then, when you raid someone else, the animals steal your food and kill your babies. It’s pretty damn hard.
The fourth stage is awful. The combat is far too basic and unnecessarily drawn out resulting in a game that is only feasibly won with economic means, and if you don’t grow like lightening, by hell are you going to feel it. You can still win by buying your way to victory… It feels cheap, and it also feels that you cannot win if combat is the goal. For a violent and sociopathic player like myself, this is not a good stage.
The fifth stage is the space age, allowing you to venture out into the vastness of space itself. You can do a few really cool things like abducting critters, and visiting strange new worlds, expanding and destroying empires but the less said about this one the better.
Overall I rate spore very highly. It’s design is exceptional and it really opens itself up to being a fun, enjoyable game. What lets it down is that the best stages are the first stage and the last stage by far. Growing up as a small critter in the cell stage and surviving feels amazing and it’s a whole lot of fun, followed by the adventures on the land that make up the creature stage. I didn’t enjoy this one as much, though it was definitely interesting.
The Tribal stage feels overwhelming when you’re getting attacked on all sides, and this I feel was possibly my fault for playing the game on hard mode.
The civilization stage is probably the most disappointing as it just feels like a relentless stalemate and if you don’t advance quickly you can be caught up in a neverending cycle for hours before you bribe yhour way to victory…
The space stage is literally a whole new universe and offers so much… It’s also amusing in it’s own way because you get to abduct people in much the same way as you may have seen lifeforms abducted in the previous stages…
The game is full of strengths, and whilst I didn’t like the middle part so much, it is definitely something a lot of other people will enjoy. The evolution of a race from it’s most primordial to it’s voyage to the stars is something spore captures beautifully and it is definitely worth playing. Due to the way the game works, there is really something there for everyone, and if you don’t like one stage, you may love another. For it’s time, Spore was a step above most games, and it’s easy to see why. The level of design and complexity is superb. What lets the game down is that I feel that some stages, especially the civilization stage lack the scope and design that makes other stages so good. Mind you, this is one lackluster part of a game that is overwhelmingly good.
Other Videos By Chan Walrus
Other Statistics
Spore Statistics For Chan Walrus
There are 285 views in 1 video for Spore. His channel published less than an hour of Spore content, making up less than 0.05% of the total overall content on Chan Walrus's YouTube channel.