Score
Gameplay:	8
Graphics:	9
Sound:	9
FunFactor:	8
PlasmaFactor:	9
Overall:	8.6

Spore Review
September 9, 2008 by Ryan Lodata

Create, evolve and advance; that is the premise behind Will Wright’s latest creation called Spore. Spore puts players in the position of a creationist that must mold and develop a new species of animal. This definitely sounds like an undertaking and it very clearly was, especially considering the game’s development took several years. However, has Will Wright made the ultimate sandbox game of life or has it de-evolved into a gimmick?

Gameplay

Players start out by creating a simple one-celled organism that they must commandeer through the primordial ooze and bring it to the top of the food chain. To do this, players must eat other animals or plants as they move their creature around. As you begin to feed on or befriend species, you will gain special attributes that will help you navigate your way around and become top of the food chain. Unlike Flow, the game doesn’t stop there.

The next stage in your character’s evolution takes you on land. During this phase, your creature grows legs and must befriend or exterminate the other species in your vicinity. To friend the opposing species, you must charm them through song and dance. However, if you decide to kill everyone like I did, you must gather your fellow species and attack a predetermined number of that particular group. Eventually, your species must migrate and grow. Once again, when you reach the top of the food chain, you can advance to the tribal stage of evolution.

It is during the tribal stage that you begin to get the hang of basic resource management. Players must gather food and continue to grow their little community. Just like every other stage in evolution, players are given the option to befriend or attack the other tribes on the planet. How you choose to go about this will give you unique perks in your travels that you may find useful. Although this stage would seem more involved than the previous, it is not your final stop on the way to complete domination.

As you evolve, your species will eventually be able to form a civilization. It is at this point that players are given access to the building and vehicle creators. The buildings and vehicles that you create will be the centerpiece of your civilization.

Civilization mode introduces not only other forms of creation, but it also allows for you to plan and manage the various colonies on a very minimal level. At the most, players will find them managing 8 or 10 buildings within a colony and even then its not very important to micro-manage them. Once you have assumed control of the planet through alliances, buyouts or conquest, you will advance to the space stage.

The space stage is by far the most complicated of any within Spore. Players assume control of a spaceship that can travel throughout the Spore galaxy. Just about anything is possible at this point in the game. The space stage of Spore will allow you to mold planets, conquer planets or even buy them out. If you have noticed by now, this is a recurring theme throughout Spore and was implemented to make sure that there is something for all sorts of players. This stage will definitely appeal mostly to the hardcore gamers considering its complexity.

There were moments that I found myself wondering why a certain stage was so easy even on the normal difficulty. It wasn’t until the space stage that any sort of difficulty was even presented in my time with Spore. This may be a big turn-off to some of the more hardcore strategy gamers out there. Ultimately, this game gives the appearance that its focus is mainly placed on the casual gamer and that is what has made this game so hard to analyze.

Clearly, I play more than my fair share of video games. To me, Spore was just another game that was extremely open to all forms of creativity. This level of customization does not interest me nearly as much as a challenge or some sort of in-depth story. If there was some sort of multiplayer integration to allow for greater strategy to be involved, there might have been a whole other level of gameplay that I would find myself deeply involved in. However, this is not the case. For some of my casual gaming friends on the other hand, this was not the case.

Before this review was even on my mind, several of my friends stopped by and took a look at the game. After seeing several minutes of gameplay and hearing a short explanation, they immediately purchased copies of the game on launch day. There were moments when I found them sitting for hours on end customizing their character into something very specific that they had envisioned and that was a sign of the true audience that will find themselves revisiting Spore. The hardcore gaming crowd may have been left out, but the same crowd that might have played The Sims will find a new home in the form of Spore.

Graphics

Spore is a great looking game for what it offers. Maxis was able to create a game that had the look and feel of a cartoon, but lacking any sort of actual load time. At no point during your adventures will you notice much of a load time. Spore was even able to run on a Core 2 Duo system with integrated video and still be devoid of any real loading times. This is entirely due to the scalability of the graphics engine, which very clear shows that a lot of time was spent optimizing the graphics for a broad range of systems and provide graphics that match the overall feel of the game.

Sound

The sound in Spore is definitely one of its highlights. Players are given the ability to randomize the music or even add custom notes, beats or sounds that will play. Even the creature sounds add a whole other level to the sound in Spore that really helps to pull you into the game. Overall, most players will be highly satisfied with the crisp music and sound effects that they will hear throughout Spore.

Plasmafactor

Spore is, no doubt, one of the best sandbox games to hit the PC. There are so many customizable options in a broad range of objects, many players may find themselves outright addicted to just creating various objects for the game. Customization is the biggest draw to Spore and players that love creating will find a new form of gaming addiction in the form of Spore.

Conclusion

There is no doubt that Spore is a casual game. For that particular crowd, they will find themselves immersed in a game that is sure to provide them countless hours of customizing, painting and terraforming. However, the hardcore crowd will find themselves looking back to the days of seeing videos and thinking about how cool it will be to conquer someone else’s planet. If you are a casual gamer and enjoy exploring your creative side, then go buy this game right now. It seems as though Maxis has finally created the ultimate tool to differentiate between the different types of gamers.