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Published on April 11, 2009 By SplitPeaSoup In PC Gaming

So, who else thought Spore was lots of hype and no game? It had builders, sure. But there was no game.

Games require challenge. The only part that had any challenge whatsoever was the cell stage, and that was the shortest stage. The creature stage tactics were like the rest of the game, sterotyped and unintriguing. The social game was stupid and overly easy. A memorization puzzle or something would have made it 100x better. The fighting was not like an FPS whatsoever, contrary to the advertising. If anything, it should have been like a boxing game. But in the end, it was just rapidly click and hope you win. I expect more tactics from an MMO.

The AI in the tribal and civ stages were appauling. They were way too easy. I never had to think ahead. And the social game was just as stupid as in creature stage.

The space stage was the worst, probably because it had so much potential. I was thinking it would be something like gal civ. In the end, it was a never-ending struggle against uninventive and repetitive pirates and epidemics; the missions were stupid; the tactics were non-existant in space and worse than space invaders on the planet. The social game was abysmal. Systems cost a fortune, but weapons don't. Gathering resources was an unacceptably boring chore. My allies always die, and I can't really control them. Blah. This game was worth about $10. The price of the creature creator.

 

The expansion addresses none of the major issues.

 

How did this game do so well with critics? Bribery?


Comments (Page 1)
2 Pages1 2 
on Apr 11, 2009

i hear u, i played it from cell to space when i first played it but that was the only time i played it, it was to redundent with nothing exciting. i remeber seeing earlyer previews of it and they actually look BETTER than the released game... but yea i wouldnt recomend it to anyone really, and the critics are just there to sell a game, no reall insight to a game through them is what ive found.

on Apr 11, 2009

Ya, the E3 2005 version was WAY better than the end product. Check it out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8dvMDFOFnA

Heck, I would buy the spore from that video in a heartbeat. Unfortunately they totally redid the graphics and pretty much all of the game to the point where it is a little kid game which should have been titled 'An introduction to video games.'

And to add insult to injury, put a bunch of DRM on it.

on Apr 11, 2009

Definitely agree with above posts. I borrowed the game from my brother to try it out. It was all right, had some fun with it, took it off my hard drive and gave it back to my brother. Did not bother to buy it. Was not worth the hype.

on Apr 11, 2009

alway
Ya, the E3 2005 version was WAY better than the end product. Check it out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8dvMDFOFnA

Heck, I would buy the spore from that video in a heartbeat. Unfortunately they totally redid the graphics and pretty much all of the game to the point where it is a little kid game which should have been titled 'An introduction to video games.'

And to add insult to injury, put a bunch of DRM on it.


Yes thats the EXACT video i was talking about!!!  it looked amazing at that point and now its worthless in my eyes, had good potential, now theres just none left

on Apr 11, 2009

Definitely agree with above posts. I borrowed the game from my brother to try it out. It was all right, had some fun with it, took it off my hard drive and gave it back to my brother. Did not bother to buy it. Was not worth the hype.

Did you clear out the hidden Securom installation that stays behind? (you need the utility from the Securom hompage) That's the most vomit inducing part of that particular DRM trend for me. (though the limited online activations stuff comes a close second)

on Apr 11, 2009

The box looks really good on my shelf >.>

on Apr 11, 2009

I never picked it up and so have only seen the demos and such, but from what I have seen it basically looked like four mediocre genre games rolled up into one.  As for the critics, well I learned long ago that a lot of game critics are shall we say not always up to snuff when it comes to professional objectivity and avoiding fanboyism when it comes to one's pet developer/publisher/genre.

on Apr 11, 2009

So, who else thought Spore was lots of hype and no game? It had builders, sure. But there was no game.Games require challenge. The only part that had any challenge whatsoever was the cell stage, and that was the shortest stage. The creature stage tactics were like the rest of the game, sterotyped and unintriguing. The social game was stupid and overly easy. A memorization puzzle or something would have made it 100x better. The fighting was not like an FPS whatsoever, contrary to the advertising. If anything, it should have been like a boxing game. But in the end, it was just rapidly click and hope you win. I expect more tactics from an MMO.The AI in the tribal and civ stages were appauling. They were way too easy. I never had to think ahead. And the social game was just as stupid as in creature stage.The space stage was the worst, probably because it had so much potential. I was thinking it would be something like gal civ. In the end, it was a never-ending struggle against uninventive and repetitive pirates and epidemics; the missions were stupid; the tactics were non-existant in space and worse than space invaders on the planet. The social game was abysmal. Systems cost a fortune, but weapons don't. Gathering resources was an unacceptably boring chore. My allies always die, and I can't really control them. Blah. This game was worth about $10. The price of the creature creator. The expansion addresses none of the major issues. How did this game do so well with critics? Bribery?

I just hope that Sims 3 doesn't end up having the same fate. I doubt it though because of the type of game that Sims is.

I had high expectations for Spore, just like everyone else. And well, that's exactly why the game just isn't that great. People were at first led to believe that it would be a deep evolution simiulator of sorts with complexity far greater than any of Will Wright's other games. Well, not the case. It ended up being almost like a bunch of "big-mini-games" lumped together incoherantly one after and another.

Addmitedly, the game certainly did push the boundaries of what is possible from user creativity, as proven with the amazing buildings, creatures, vehicles, and planets that people have created. It's just unfortunate though that Spore was more like Little Big Planet than it was like Sim City.

on Apr 11, 2009

I dunno, it is fun on occassion. I usually just start it up, create a few things, and turn if off. I mean, the gameplay was all pretty mediocre, and too easy. The end game was a bit lackluster, but the Galactic Adventures expansion will probably spice things up.

Overall, it was a nice tech-demo in my book (programmer here) and so it gives me some hope of seeing this sort of technology in the future. So, here's hoping that Sproe 2 is better... You know it's coming in a year or two.

 

alway
Ya, the E3 2005 version was WAY better than the end product. Check it out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8dvMDFOFnA

Heck, I would buy the spore from that video in a heartbeat. Unfortunately they totally redid the graphics and pretty much all of the game to the point where it is a little kid game which should have been titled 'An introduction to video games.'

And to add insult to injury, put a bunch of DRM on it.

The Spore in that video was the same Spore we got. The only real difference was that the game in the video had more "Earth" tones and the current game is a little more colorful. The gameplay would have been the same.

on Apr 12, 2009

I just hope that Sims 3 doesn't end up having the same fate. I doubt it though because of the type of game that Sims is.

You can play Sims 3 right now. It's called Sims 2. I don't recommend you buy the expansions, though, unless you want to spend $200 on that game.  Obviously, they are overpriced.

 Unlike the creepy and cute pack. That was only 40% the cost of the game for 100 MB's of intricate, timeless, and endlessly replayable content.

The end game was a bit lackluster, but the Galactic Adventures expansion will probably spice things up.

tool. You know what. That's mean. I apologize. But seriously, if you want to "spice" things up the right way, but Gal Civ Ultimate. That's set in space, and its actually fun.

 

on Apr 12, 2009

Spore is crap, it was all set to be the best of the best in God games / simulations, and ended with you just being a lackey with cool editors.

on Apr 12, 2009

Spore had great editors.  That's just about the only nice thing I can say about it.  It's case in point of how not to design a game.

I honestly don't know what to think about this whole disaster.  It's very clear that it was a screw-up, but why it ended up that way with pedigree game designers and virtually limitless development time is a mystery.  Some people say it was an attempt to "dumb down" the game to widen its target audience.  This is downright stupid to anyone who has ever watched a kid play his first RTS game.  They don't get caught up on the intricacies of deeper strategy.  It's the basic mechanics that they have to get their heads around, and once they do they tackle the depth of the game at their own pace, raising the difficulty as they feel comfortable. 

At the end of the day, I just have to conclude that the people making Spore didn't have a clue of what they were doing.  Oh, sure, they had beautiful ideas and the guys making the editors certainly did a marvellous job.  But the implementation was shoddy and lackluster at its best. 

on Apr 12, 2009

Well the Sims 1 was also kind of crap in actual gameplay terms once you removed the novelty. Or how about Black & White - the strategy element just didn't work. But they were still both amazing and important games.

I'm still glad they made it, and I found it very entertaining for a while.

on Apr 12, 2009

Spore was very much an experiment, and some experiments just don't come off.

 

The main problem I think was that in order to appeal to more hardcore gamers (like the people reading this as opposed to people who occasionally play The Sims), it needed to not have EA on its back, but such was the technical undertaking, it needed EAs money to work.  I don't consider it as bad as some people say it is - they are trying to compare it to 'real' games like GalCiv, SoaSE etc (slight Stardock bias there ), when thats not what it is at all.  I agree with Nights Edge that it is in the same realm as Black and White, and I reckon that the technology used to make it will be used in many great games in the future.

 

As a comparison, has anyone heard of a film called Young Sherlock Holmes?  A pretty mediocre mid-1980s film, but it was the first film with a fully CGI character, created by John Lasseter who went on to found Pixar.

on Apr 12, 2009

Not to mention how much it costed just for the game it self

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