[Review] Spore

[Justananomaly]

Title: Spore
Developer: Maxis
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Lead Designer: Will Wright
Lead Composer: Brian Eno
Genre: Multiple, God Game, Life Simulation

Platform: Microsoft Windows Vista 32-bit

Review by: Justananomaly

"In order to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe." - Carl Sagan

Spore was one of those titles I thought would eventually be abandon ware. The release date was pushed back on numerous occasions and the game play seemed too farfetched for me to believe that religious nuts wouldn't make an evolution mockery out of it. However, it's now out and I put off buying it due to financial reasons, but I now have it and I played it for thirteen straight hours after installation. Holy beauty is all I can say. I know people have been bashing it because of the DRM, but get over it, I had no installation issues at all and you shouldn't have downloaded a ripped version before deciding to buy it.

Graphics (10/10): At 1680x1050 the very first portions of Spore were fed to me with bubbly liquid love. The first part of the game consists of a top-down camera with some of the most amazing visuals on the planet. It really gave me a sense of depth at a level I have never seen before in a game and that depth changed at every stage of your creature’s development. The first part of the game was all I needed to decide this game deserves this score. It rocked me to my core and I don't believe that will happen again until well after 2010.

Sound/Music (10/10): Immersive. In my first thirteen hours of game play I hardly remembered to use the bathroom. I got so involved in the cute quirky sounds every different creature makes to do different things. The sounds of your creature are also based around the design of your creatures, so you will probably never hear two different creatures make two similar sounds. The music is awe inspiring, it keeps you motivated and yet it’s ambient and inspires you to create, which is the entire point to the game itself.

Game play (10/10): Yes, I know I will get seriously bashed for this. But hear me out; the first part of the game could have been done better. The most disappointing aspect being the repetitive things that could have been stretched out a little further, and a pretty annoying tutorial system for things that were so obvious it was not even funny. Now I understand they had to remove some of the content from the videos to make the Christians and their five-thousand year old earth happy, but they should have stood their grounds and left it in the game. The game does have an easy, medium, and hard game modes that make up for most of the beginning-game complaints and it does mature to the strategy "tribal" point at which it fully shows its true colors, and it does it really well.

Replay ability (10/10): There is unlimited replay ability as you will eventually want to make new creatures to test out, and you can play with any of the builders freely at any time outside of the main game.

Fun Factor: (10/10): Do I even have to explain this score? Play it for an hour and you will truly fall in love with it. It does take awhile for the more hardcore game play to take affect but you control everything at some point so there’s no reason to really complain about that. You meet others creations stored online and downloaded slowly to your computer and the possibilities are unlimited. There is rarely a dull moment in Spore.

[Locke]

Was the rest of the game as beautiful?

You know that no sane Christian ought to hold to the 5,000 year view, and that in the larger scheme of theings the Christian really doesn't need to care at all, right? The premise of the game itself would be more offensive, and it doesn't offend in the least; it's just a fun game. People sometimes.

That being said, good review, +rep.

[Dizzy]

People's beef with the DRM is that it's ROOT-KIT drm. That's the same stuff Sony got sued over a few years back. It's not only on the game, it installs itself deep within your system.

But it does win points for uniqueness.

[Space Toast]

Agreed, Dizzy makes a valid point, +rep Randy.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by Dizzy

People's beef with the DRM is that it's ROOT-KIT drm. That's the same stuff Sony got sued over a few years back. It's not only on the game, it installs itself deep within your system.

But it does win points for uniqueness.

The way I heard, it wasn't a root-kit, but a single, one time online activation for the system. If it really was a root-kit, I don't think it would sell a single copy, at least, not to people with a brain.

[Justananomaly]

Yes the rest of the game is THAT beautiful.. at least so far.. not in space just yet but I can imagine its more amazing then the rest. Thanks for the +rep guys!