In a sense, Spore became a victim of it’s own hype. As with any buzzed-about product, there are going to be high expectations that are oft-invented by gossip and wishful thinking. While many thought that Spore would be an MMO of sorts that allowed the player to make a creature and pretty much do anything, that was never creator Will Wright’s intention with the game.  Instead, he and Maxis have created a somewhat-linear game that slowly evolves (pun intended) into a sandbox-esque experience bursting with options and possibilities.

Game creators and companies make all sorts of promises. One of the most popular promises they like to make is that their game is going to appeal to the hardcore gamer as well as the casual one. As many have come to realize, this is a promise that is very rarely fulfilled. Spore, unsurprisingly (given the creator), meets this criterion in a way that only Will Wright, creator of The Sims and SimCity, could do. Wright is well-known in the gaming world for taking a complex concept and reducing it to a simplistic enjoyable-for-all form that somehow keeps a high level of integrity.

Spore has been referred to as a "massively single-player online game" because the only thing shared between players is data.  While you can go and destroy another planet, the people with creatures on that planet aren’t going to necessarily know because it’s more-or-less an alternate reality.

While decisions do affect your path, the game-play is fairly linear up until you reach the Space portion of the game, where you’re given the ability to roam the planets and do as you wish, as well as return to previous sections of the game.

The creature creator portion is undeniably fun. Designing your specimen and perfecting it’s stats is an incredibly rewarding feeling that makes you feel close with the race you‘ve created. The massive variety of parts at your disposal, as well as the ability to size the body and all of the ligaments to whatever size you like, allows you to create almost anything that you’d like to. 

Aside from customizing a creature, the player is also given the ability of designing buildings, uniforms, vehicles, and anthems for your race. In theory this sounds liberating and fun, but there’s a level of tediousness that goes with so much creation. Depending on just how much patience you have, there’s a chance you’re going to want to opt out of designing so many things so as to further your game faster. Fortunately, Spore gives you the option of choosing your own previous creations or the creations of others instead of having to continually design different things.

Because there’s a cap on how complex of a creature you can create, you’re unable to create an unfair and overpowered killing machine. The decisions you make as to what kind of creature yours is going to become-- whether it be a herbivore, omnivore, or carnivore-- play a part in the future of your species and what they will become. It’s true that the game is open-ended, but there are still three main paths and you’re forced to choose one of them. You can be a peaceful race who allies with other tribes, you can be an economic race who works with others to generate “sporebucks”, or you can be a military race who attempts to conquer everything possible.  While this may feel limiting to some, these choices are only there to ensure that you interact with other races and get the most out of the experience that you can.

While the five sections of the game are a tad uneven, they’re all plenty worth the time and effort if only to reach the Space section of the game. The civilization and tribal stages felt particularly tedious and pointless. In the civilization portion, there’s a chance you’ll lose simply due to the poor luck of being placed next to military cities or just being incapable of generating enough income due to poor placing of resources on the map.

Once the player completes a stage they are given the choice of going back and redoing it or any of the other previous stages with either the same creature, or a different creature on another planet. This option became necessary for me because I became stuck in a part of the civilization stage that was impossible for me to get past due to hostile neighbors.

Spore is a game that triumphs in many ways and trips in a few ways as well. While the overall product definitely delivers, smaller aspects of the game play halt it from being the glorious perfection that many were unreasonably hoping for.  The ability to truly create your own game play is incredible, but the level of creation that comes with it can grow a tad bothersome after a while, which may kill the relevance and staying power of the game.  Even with that minor factor of vexation, Spore is a fun game that should be experienced by any true gamer.

Gameplay

Links:

Official Site