I think a lot of people are on the fence about this game, judging by the number of questions I get over xfire when I fire it up. Here are my thoughts after 16 hours of the game.
You should note that so far I have played highly aggressively, not making any friends until it was practically necessary in space stage. Touchy-feely pussies might find more dimensions to the game.
This game is not for the average foamin-at-the-mouth fps/rts 1337 twitchy computer gamer. It is not a game with a whole lot of strategy (at least on normal) and there isn't a lot of depth to the strategic aspect of the game at any level. I have played flash games that were more intense than the cell stage, tribal and civilization stage are shallow at best when it comes to tactics, and no problem is too great in creature or space stage that a kick some dirt at the kid, run back to mommy, rinse repeat strategy can't overcome. The graphics are not bad, but nothing to write home about, and there is no obvious style that would make me think the graphics direction was intentional à la TF2. The controls are fairly clumsy throughout the game, and there is not a very high level of customization that could make the controls much better in my opinion. In the civilization stage I nearly shat my pants at how slowly the camera moves, it would be absolutely unacceptable in any game that marketed itself as an RTS.
So what is good about it? What are people raving about? Well obviously people know about the creature creator. There is immense fun in making a phallic shape with legs and a huge gaping jaw and then devouring other creatures with it, plain and simple. Even taking a more "serious" approach and coming up with something original, it's very fun and very intuitive to make your own creature with three mouths and lobster claws. The strange part is that this occupies a very small portion of the game. Cell stage passes in the blink of an eye, and creature stage doesn't take more than an hour or two. Maybe it would get boring if it was longer, but it seems to me that one of the widely advertised and best stages in the game got mostly left on the cutting room floor. Of course you can always just go back and design creatures, but considering I thought the game was primarily about doing that, I was suprised and disappointed that it ended so abruptly.
Then you get tossed into the tribal civilization stage. Anything you design after this point is completely worthless, and in some cases even a nuisance in my opinion. You have to design clothing for your creature that does nothing but muddle it up, but you feel compelled to because it gives them some sort of bonus in tribal stage. In civilization you are designing your air, land, and naval units that you never really get to see up close, and designing your buildings is an incredibly boring task. It effects absolutely nothing, and it's a fucking building. I don't care. My penis monster was fun to make, and then I got to see it stomp around and shit, but now what am I supposed to do? Penis smokestacks? Even your spaceship, essentially your avatar for the rest of the game, you never get to see in any detail and has no level of differentiation between the parts you use. Designing in the latter part of the game becomes more of a chore rather than a game play element, which is dissapointing because you have this really great and easy to use editor, but then every time it tells you to make something you know a white sphere will work just as well as a badass star destroyer with missile racks and teeth painted on.
Space stage is like playing a Risk mmorpg by yourself. It's fun, I like it so far, but considering it is just a MASSIVELY longer section of the game comparatively it's kinda meh. I would rather all of this effort have gone into making the other stages better than copy-pasting sectors of stars a couple hundred times to make a massive yet samey experience. I thought much better of the stage maybe 3 hours ago, but now that I have a hang of pretty much all the aspects I realize that you could spend another 1600 hours in this stage without visiting every planet, and yet have not a single new experience compared to the last 8 hours.
Overall? It's a good game. It has its problems, and it does not seem adequately play tested. The original concept carries it through though, and in the end it just leaves me thinking about how freakin awesome Spore 2 could be if they fix all the minor shit that bogs this one down. If you can amuse yourself with single player titles and can go without smacking someone with your e-dick for a few hours it is definitely worth the buy, if nothing else for the novelty. I think it will be a good title to sit down on a Saturday morning and make a ten eyed monster when other games get old and you need something less serious, but I don't think it's a game you can play exclusively for any more than 25 hours max. That is unless you can occupy yourself with a can of play-doh for hours, in which case you already own this game and are only reading this post because you got lost on your way to the Spore editor.
You should note that so far I have played highly aggressively, not making any friends until it was practically necessary in space stage. Touchy-feely pussies might find more dimensions to the game.
This game is not for the average foamin-at-the-mouth fps/rts 1337 twitchy computer gamer. It is not a game with a whole lot of strategy (at least on normal) and there isn't a lot of depth to the strategic aspect of the game at any level. I have played flash games that were more intense than the cell stage, tribal and civilization stage are shallow at best when it comes to tactics, and no problem is too great in creature or space stage that a kick some dirt at the kid, run back to mommy, rinse repeat strategy can't overcome. The graphics are not bad, but nothing to write home about, and there is no obvious style that would make me think the graphics direction was intentional à la TF2. The controls are fairly clumsy throughout the game, and there is not a very high level of customization that could make the controls much better in my opinion. In the civilization stage I nearly shat my pants at how slowly the camera moves, it would be absolutely unacceptable in any game that marketed itself as an RTS.
So what is good about it? What are people raving about? Well obviously people know about the creature creator. There is immense fun in making a phallic shape with legs and a huge gaping jaw and then devouring other creatures with it, plain and simple. Even taking a more "serious" approach and coming up with something original, it's very fun and very intuitive to make your own creature with three mouths and lobster claws. The strange part is that this occupies a very small portion of the game. Cell stage passes in the blink of an eye, and creature stage doesn't take more than an hour or two. Maybe it would get boring if it was longer, but it seems to me that one of the widely advertised and best stages in the game got mostly left on the cutting room floor. Of course you can always just go back and design creatures, but considering I thought the game was primarily about doing that, I was suprised and disappointed that it ended so abruptly.
Then you get tossed into the tribal civilization stage. Anything you design after this point is completely worthless, and in some cases even a nuisance in my opinion. You have to design clothing for your creature that does nothing but muddle it up, but you feel compelled to because it gives them some sort of bonus in tribal stage. In civilization you are designing your air, land, and naval units that you never really get to see up close, and designing your buildings is an incredibly boring task. It effects absolutely nothing, and it's a fucking building. I don't care. My penis monster was fun to make, and then I got to see it stomp around and shit, but now what am I supposed to do? Penis smokestacks? Even your spaceship, essentially your avatar for the rest of the game, you never get to see in any detail and has no level of differentiation between the parts you use. Designing in the latter part of the game becomes more of a chore rather than a game play element, which is dissapointing because you have this really great and easy to use editor, but then every time it tells you to make something you know a white sphere will work just as well as a badass star destroyer with missile racks and teeth painted on.
Space stage is like playing a Risk mmorpg by yourself. It's fun, I like it so far, but considering it is just a MASSIVELY longer section of the game comparatively it's kinda meh. I would rather all of this effort have gone into making the other stages better than copy-pasting sectors of stars a couple hundred times to make a massive yet samey experience. I thought much better of the stage maybe 3 hours ago, but now that I have a hang of pretty much all the aspects I realize that you could spend another 1600 hours in this stage without visiting every planet, and yet have not a single new experience compared to the last 8 hours.
Overall? It's a good game. It has its problems, and it does not seem adequately play tested. The original concept carries it through though, and in the end it just leaves me thinking about how freakin awesome Spore 2 could be if they fix all the minor shit that bogs this one down. If you can amuse yourself with single player titles and can go without smacking someone with your e-dick for a few hours it is definitely worth the buy, if nothing else for the novelty. I think it will be a good title to sit down on a Saturday morning and make a ten eyed monster when other games get old and you need something less serious, but I don't think it's a game you can play exclusively for any more than 25 hours max. That is unless you can occupy yourself with a can of play-doh for hours, in which case you already own this game and are only reading this post because you got lost on your way to the Spore editor.
