I remember, a few years back now, when I had first heard of Spore.  A buddy at work sent me a 22 minute YouTube video of Spore being demo’d.  I sat through the entire video in awe of what I was seeing.  Now that I’ve had a chance to sit down and try it out, does it live up to those wild and crazy expectations I had when I saw that video?  Hit the jump to find out.

The answer to whether or not it met my expectations is…sort of.

The very first thing I noticed after installing the game was how long it took for the game to load.  Once inside the game, load times are reasonable, but firing up the game takes enough time for me to go upstairs, get a drink, go to the bathroom, and sit back down just as the game is launching.  The second thing I noticed was the first menu.  There are three options that read, “Play”, “Create”, and “Share”.

Does that sound familiar?  Because it sure did to me.

Anyway, after getting past that, I dove straight into the cell stage and haven’t looked back.  In the cell stage, you play a rather simplistic organism on a 2d plane, very similar to those old flash games where you were a fish eating smaller fish until you grow, only to eat the fish that were bigger than you, you eat meteor fragments (life came down on a meteor in the game) and other critters to collect DNA.  You then use that DNA to buy new parts.  You start off with a few limited body parts that you can add, but as the game goes on and you defeat other enemies, you are awarded with additional body parts.  Some make you move faster, some offer passive defenses, some are new mouths, etc.  By the end of the cell stage, I had some flagella, a jet (similar to an octopuses jet propulsion), several spikes, and a probiscus.  My character was an omnivore, but I focused on hunter.

This is one of the things that I really enjoy about the game.  In each stage (there are 5 total), your playstyle determines what bonuses you get in the next stage, and what types of items are available to you (whether they are religious or military for instance).  So, if you play aggressive in the cell stage, you start off with carnivore mouths in the creature phase.

After putzing around as a cell for a while, I was finally able to move to land.  This phase plays similar to any standard fantasy MMO…but without all of the players.  You are given abilities that you can use to woo nearby creatures (singing, dancing, posing, etc granted from items like better feet, hands, and mouths) or you can use your body parts to attack and shred your enemies to bits.  You are given small objectives to complete (like impress 3 of a specified creature, or kill 5 of them).  Again, how you play the game here determines what happens in the next phase.

Now’s a good time to talk about the NPCs in the game.  Spore has a massive database called the Sporeapedia where all saved user and Maxis created creatures, vehicles, and buildings are stored.  The game pulls from this database to populate your world, so you might see a creature your friend had created, or several you had never seen before.  Definitely a cool feature of the game that keeps the scenery fresh.  There were definitely moments where I sat back and exclaimed, out loud, “WTF?!” while laughing at some of the creatures I came across.

After performing enough tasks and evolving enough, you move into the tribal stage.  Your evolution is pretty much done at this point, and you are given one last chance to make changes to your creature before moving on.  From here on out, however, you are stuck with your decisions.

The tribal stage is like a mini-RTS.  You are given a small tribe of your own creatures and you must either destroy or convert other villages.  Resource gathering is limited to food which is used to buy new units and buildings.  You gain buildings, weapons, and tools as you interact with other villages and can use them to enhance your creatures for specific roles, you can also equip your creatures with items that boost their social, gathering, and combat stats.  This is where the game begins to falter, as gameplay starts to feel shallow.  As I was playing it, I had a strong urge to stop playing and pick up a full fledged RTS like Starcraft.  However, I continued on.  After converting or destroying the 5 (or was it 6?) villages, you move to the Civilization stage.

Again, during the civilation stage, I felt like it was lacking.  Resource management was next to none existant, aside from the need for “Spore bucks” which you got by capturing resource nodes called “Spice geysers” and by building factories.  Very similar to the tribal phase, your goal is to convince all of the other cities that you’re way is best through either peaceful or violent means.  You get to design your own buildings as well as ground, sea, and air vehicles.  This is where your creativity really starts to shine.  Much like the creature creation section, differently parts increase the stats of your vehicles making them better at one thing or another.

This is where I’ve stopped, I have yet to make it to the space age, yet I’ve heard it is by far the deepest and most challenging aspect of the game.  So I look forward to that.

Aside from the shallow gameplay at times, another complaint is the lack of customization…yes I know, “Blasphemy!  This is Spore afterall!”  But that’s kind of my point.  There’s this incredibly deep and rich creation tool that gives you access to a huge amount of customization options.  But it still feels lacking.

I really wish there was more to each phase.  Some added depth would have been welcome, yet, the game’s ambition is still impressive.  It’s definitely fun and a title I’d recommend to just about everyone.

My guess is that, given how they handled The Sims, we’ll see a slew of expansions coming down the line in short order that will, hopefully, resolve these two qualms I have about the game.

Anyway, here are some screenshots to illustrate a creature, building, and vehicle I made in the time I’ve been playing.

It’s worth noting that I tracked these screenshots down on the Sporeapedia at http://www.spore.com and searching for my username, kainpaladini.  These are uploaded regularly and automatically, which is spiff.