Spore

Posted 4 years ago By - Brian Edey

There are not too many games out there today from the traditional big name publishers and developers, which take a unique and risky approach to game development and try to give gamers something new and eventually fun, although the trend does seem to be improving. But in the case of Maxis and Will Wright they have done it again with a massively wonderful and user friendly fun gaming experience with Spore. The Sims and Sim City creator took years to bring out this title and in the end it paid off, mostly due to Wright’s creativity but willing to take a chance.

While the game is not perfect, in fact it suffers from some questionable pacing issues at times and some seriously boring moments throughout if you can sit down and enjoy the freedom of the game and the potential longevity you are in for a serious treat.


Spore’s gameplay is almost as varied as the creatures you can create in the game, from a simple point and click and eat gameplay during the cell phase, simple direction movement and choices of attacking or charming other tribes of creatures, a very simple action strategy title where you control your tribe sending out several members to invade other tribes to destroy them, then build up your little town with buildings to assist your tribe with actual weapons, food gathering, healing and more. Then the strategy side of things continues but with a larger city, vehicles you design and some basic resource gathering of ’Spice’, and basically sets the games big goal to whom ever has the most cash wins and finally ending with Space, which basically allows you to repopulate other worlds. Many different gameplay choices, but they are similar in controls that even the most casual player will move from one to the other with ease.

Spore fits into that one area of gaming trend referred to as ’impossible’, an area where the game is almost perfectly balanced, playable by anyone, allows for complete freedom and is still fun. This has been tried before, but those games failed dramatically. As mentioned above Spore went in a multi-gameplay genre direction, but it also borrowed from Will Wrights other masterpiece of gaming. The Sims with a picture chat bubble for the general communication between your species and the simple interaction between species with charm, intimidation and dancing. Simple controls and simple communication allowing for the player to dominate the world in a way they want, by force (eating your foes) or by diplomacy (shaking your butt at them).

Designing your herbivore or carnivore from the cell stage to eventual domination of all you can see is a very rewarding process at times, even with the short, but many boring parts in the game, there is always this compelling reason to push forward, kill, dominate and build your civilization up to epic proportions, and it works even if the potential deep game we were promised was not delivered.


Graphically Spore is a wonder of technological glory and achievement on many levels from the character, vehicle and other designs you create, animation of your unique creature and the wonderful personality your creature is given. But to top it all off the creature you create will act, move and be realistic, even if it is completely weird and alien looking to what we are used to seeing in our real life.

The models in the game which are not creatures, nor their buildings and cities are well done, from the general terrain and flora to the water the design is well done, but once you see that the rest of the game is made up of graphics from you, the Maxis creatures made with the Creature Creator and from other players who while playing their game have their own wild and crazy creations uploaded and transferred automatically to your computer. This is a nice option and keeps the games creature content updating, but I would have loved to play with my friends on the same world in some way, instead I can only see their creature.

’Cartoonish’ is the best way to describe the art style of Spore and if you are playing as a ’cell’ or a ’space’ race the general look of the game stays the same and never moves outside the overall art style. With a rich set of textures to complement the in game and customized models these add to the rich cartoon look of the game.

The overall interface is very clean in the game, allowing for quick in game interaction but what I did find disappointing is sometimes you will miss out on something important, or forget to do a step, such as texturing your new vehicle or building. While this is also a gameplay issue, the user interface could make it so much easier so we do not miss out on such things or see everything we need to do.


The actual audio in spore in actually perfect, from the environmental sound effects we hear as we explore the primordial pools to the open grasslands are excellent and believable, but what is even more impressive are the sounds made by each animal and how different they actually are in different situations from when they are being charmed, dancing, running in fear or fighting the actual differences give each creature a bigger and more life like personality.

Musically the game impressed me with a musical score which ranged from a subtle score to change to a tribal beat and rhythm to the eventual future themed (the best way I can describe it) as your creature eventually leaves your planet. The music might sound simple, but if the music was not as complete as it is in the game the actual game would not be as fun or satisfying.

Grunts, babbling and more are the first forms of voice over work you will hear in the game and the first time you hear it, this voice work should put a big smile on your face.


When I first heard about Spore all those years ago I was excited thinking about how many possibly ways there would be to complete the actual game, but as time progressed I began to think, really how many ways would there actually be in the end because most people will find a play style in game which works for them and follow it the next time. But I found my self going back several times, making several different creatures and experimenting and not following a standard play style which most other game genres have you play. So in the end the actual exciting nature of the game is the pure amount of choice you have on how you raise your creature from the cell based life form to a dominate species.

Fantastic game, but it has times which are boring and they feel like a total chore to get through, but once you do get past those in the game the game becomes something unique, special and is a worth while must buy for any PC fan.

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