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Spore (PC)

Manufacturer: Electronic Arts Inc. Part number: SPORE

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CNET Editor rating:
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Average user rating: 1.5 stars out of 36 reviews

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Gamespot editors' review

Spore (PC)

price range: $47.99 - $60.74

Reviewed by: Kevin VanOrd
Reviewed on: 09/04/2008
Released on: 09/07/2008

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Spore is an enjoyable game that pulls off an interesting balancing act. On one hand, it lets you create a creature and guide its maturation from a single cell to a galactic civilization through an unusual process of evolutionary development. Because the tools used to create and revise this creature are so robust and amusing, and each creation's charms are so irresistible, it's hard not to get attached to your digital alter ego. On the other hand, this intimacy is abandoned in the long, later portions of the game, when you lead your full-grown civilization in its quest for universal domination. The idea sounds ambitious, though Spore isn't as much a deep game as it is a broad one, culling elements from multiple genres and stripping them down to their simplest forms. By themselves, these elements aren't very remarkable; but within the context of a single, sprawling journey, they complement each other nicely and deliver a myriad of delights.

Just keep swimming, swimming, swimming...

Spore's greatest asset, by far, is its intuitive set of creation tools. If you've played the separate Creature Creator, released earlier this year, you're only seeing a small piece of the puzzle. At various stages, you'll construct, for example, town halls, land vehicles sporting cannons, and aircraft that spout religious propaganda. The creatures are the true stars though, and you can mix and match legs, arms, mouths, wings, and lots of other parts into a beautiful work of art--or a hideous monstrosity. Each part of your creation can be turned, resized, and twisted, so whether you wish to re-create a favorite cartoon character or develop an original concept, you'll probably find what you need in here. You don't need to be a budding Pablo Picasso to make an interesting creature, however; just slapping a bunch of random parts together can result in a truly hysterical beast. Yet even if your onscreen buddy is a three-armed ogre with scales running up his belly, you'll be spending some time getting to know him in the first few hours of gameplay, and you'll probably develop some affection for him in spite of his hideousness.

You will need to put some creative energy into Spore, but if you aren't the artistic type or don't find the building- and vehicle-creation tools as interesting as those for your creature, you can use premade designs that ship with the game. Even better, you can utilize Spore's extensive community tools, inserting other players' innovations into your own game in progress. It's actually a lot of fun to sift through others' creations, if only to marvel at the remarkable amount of imagination on display. And you can do this from within the game proper using an online database called the Sporepedia. In Spore, community and gameplay come together in a fresh and user-friendly manner. In fact, to get the most out of the game, you should be online whenever you play. Not only will doing so give you access to the Sporepedia, but most of the other creatures, vehicles, and even entire planets you encounter will have been created by other players. The early release of the Creature Creator has already proven that community involvement is a core aspect of the Spore experience, and the sharing factor is poised to give the game remarkable longevity.

In a game of Spore proper, however, you won't start off by molding the creature of your dreams. The game is split into five stages, starting with the cell stage. (However, once you unlock a stage, you can start a new game there and bypass any stage that comes before it). The creation tools at this stage are simple, limited to a 2D cell and a few odds and ends, like flagella and spikes. The accompanying gameplay is similarly minimal, and if you've played Flow for the PlayStation 3 or PSP, you will have a good idea of how it works. You choose the path of a carnivore or an herbivore at the outset, which determines what sort of food bits you can munch on. From here, you maneuver your cell about the screen using the keyboard or mouse, avoiding creatures that are looking to you for their next meal while grabbing a bite or two yourself. If you're an herbivore, you seek out the green algae; if you're a carnivore, you need meat, which means waiting for a fish fight to break out and gobbling up the remains, or starting the fight yourself.

You'll also uncover new parts as you swim about, and can then attach them to your organism. To enter the cell creator, you send out a mating call, which lets you get romantic with another member of your species. Then, you add a few bits that make you swim faster or jab harder, and jump back into the gene pool. However, it is all ultrasimple: You swim around eating so you can get bigger, and avoid being eaten. If you do fall victim to a sharp-toothed protozoan, you'll rehatch with no real punishment. All in all, the cell stage may last you 20 or 25 minutes, which is just as well, since it's not very interesting and wears out its welcome quickly.

Soon enough, you'll leave the environs of the sea, add some legs, and lumber into the creature stage. You'll still find new parts scattered about, this time hidden within the skeletal remains of other beasts. Again, the gameplay itself is pretty simple: You wander around exploring for other creatures and advance through the stage by either befriending other nests or conquering them. If you want to go the aggressive route, you should equip sharp claws, tusks, and spitters; if you want to make friends with the local duck-billed orangutans, you'll go with parts that let you charm, sing, dance, and pose. Should you decide on violence, the encounter plays out much like a very plain online RPG, in which you click on your target and use one of your four special abilities to do damage. If you want to make friends by singing and dancing, you'll play a little game of Simon Says, mimicking the actions of your hopeful buddies. As you progress through the stage, you build up a little pack of followers, and they will join you in your battles--and your posing routines.

For carnivores, this truly is forbidden fruit.

The gameplay in the creature stage may be simple, but it's here that you start to see what can make playing Spore such a special and rewarding experience. Seeing your creature slowly evolve from a flat cell to an awkward, gangly land dweller is fun, particularly if he doesn't look as though such a beast in real life would be able to walk, much less bounce around the forest. This is where your relationship with the creature is most prominent, and that connection is what makes the exploration of the creature stage so interesting. When you encounter a towering six-legged atrocity charging at the locals, you'll hightail it out of there--yet still be in awe, just as if you were the little guy himself. It's more about the gawking than the playing, but whether you're joining a pack of polka-dotted parakeets in chorus or catching a glimpse of an overhead UFO, there are some legitimately appealing moments to be had.

Once you reach the tribal stage, you will lose some of that connection with your creation. You will no longer be playing as an individual, but rather controlling a tribe, and the stage plays like a slimmed down real-time strategy game. It's disappointing that you can no longer make adjustments to your tribe's main features past this point; you can, however, adorn the creatures with different clothing items for the duration. Fortunately, the charm and personality of the creature stage is still very much evident, and you'll still have the same thrills as you encounter excellent and unusual creatures as you order about your small group of wacky travelers. Conceptually, the tribal stage is similar to the creature stage, only now you focus the violence on an entire village, including structures. If you like that sort of thing, you can go so far as to equip tribe members with torches and set the enemy village ablaze. If you'd rather woo your neighbors with the sweet, soothing sounds of song, there are a few instruments at your disposal.

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User reviews

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Average user rating: 1.5 stars out of 36 reviews
My rating: 0 stars

Showing opinion 1 to 10 out of 36

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1 stars

So much promised, so little delivered

by zybch on September 11, 2008

Pros: Fun creature editor

Cons: Everything but the editor (which has NO impact on actual gameplay anyway) is just crap. Simplistic, and fleeting mini-games make up the rest of the game.
Horrible DRM ruins what little goodness there is here.

Summary: The whole touted point of this game, creature evolution, does not exist. You can make a ball with 1 leg and a single arm and the game plays exactly the ...

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Summary: The whole touted point of this game, creature evolution, does not exist. You can make a ball with 1 leg and a single arm and the game plays exactly the same as if you'd spend hours on creating and evolving your creatures to the Nth degree.
Its a collosal waste of money and the DRM with its associated rootkit makes it an unsafe purchase.
Don't buy this steaming pile of poo!

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6 out of 6 users found this user opinion helpful.
2 stars

EA Spore Fail

by ieshadover on September 9, 2008

Pros: 1. Cute and amusing
2. I like the cellular level but will grow old fast.

Cons: 1. EA ipoor customer service
2. Doesn't come near to living up to what was marketed
3. DRM is invasive, and hurt honest paying customers
4. No Parental control , some online creators are worrisome for a 10 year old to play.

Summary: I bought two copies of this game, 1 of them has an unlock code issue and thus can't be run yet. I have tried everything to get a hold ...

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Summary: I bought two copies of this game, 1 of them has an unlock code issue and thus can't be run yet. I have tried everything to get a hold of EA about this but only way that semi worked was their email from costumer service, but that only meant I got a message to them but have received no answer from EA (Other then the auto response that they'd get back to me in 24 hrs. it's been 48 hrs so far.)
Then their is the lack of parental controls, when creature creator was release within 24 hrs, very crude and obsense creature where ported to EA's website. So my concern is how do I keep my son from having P***S world, or alling with Vir***na creatures ect..... I personally can't understand why they don't have a rating system to the post creature or some kind of parental options installed.
DRM I am so tired of paying for a software, being the honest customer only to have the company making thing hard for me to own and run their game. I often upgrade hardware to play the newest and best games. These DRM activation treat new hardware as new install (Yes I've had it happen before) and just last month I have to whip my hard drive and reinstall everything because of a virus that got trough my security. So three activation can be used up very quickly and I've already stated how hard it is to get through to EA. So either I'll play the game out before it becomes an issue or I may join the legion of pirates to play a game I lawfullly bought in good faith from EA.

There is a good chance I'll stay honest though, as the game is dumbed down alot from what the original promised. Creature features and evolution really doesn't matter in the game, like originally purposed. So a 6 legged creature doesn't run faster then a 2 leg one, for example. So there is a good chance I'll grow bored with the game before I have to start down a road of crime to play it.

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6 out of 8 users found this user opinion helpful.
1 stars

Only 3 installs

by daveb604 on September 8, 2008

Pros: I was excited about this game, but I returned it before opening it after I heard about the nasty DRM.

Cons: DRM that treats owners like thieves ruins this game. It installs a rootkit. You can't install it without an internet connection. If you change hardware or install it more than 3 times, you have to call EA long distance $$$ and beg for a new key.

Summary: DRM severely limits use by rightful game owners, treating them like thieves.

Summary: DRM severely limits use by rightful game owners, treating them like thieves.

7 out of 11 users found this user opinion helpful.
1 stars

too cutiesy

by clarkthomp on September 9, 2008

Pros: A nice idea able to make all sorts of creatures

Cons: boring no game interaction with other people. The gaming world can hold your interest just so long.

Summary: a waste of money this game will be $10 before long

Summary: a waste of money this game will be $10 before long

4 out of 5 users found this user opinion helpful.
6 stars

good but gets too boring in space stage

by eydryan on September 5, 2008

Pros: - interesting character creation
- interesting gameplay and variation of
- works on lesser computers

Cons: - poor navigation, especially in space stage
- user characters lose more and more of their advantages given by creation choices (weapons on your ship have no effect in space stage)
- very bad scroll navigation (planets
- in space age boring missions

Summary: It's a nice game all in all and a new way of playing but the issue is it moves from an RPG to an RTS to space-sim. when you ...

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Summary: It's a nice game all in all and a new way of playing but the issue is it moves from an RPG to an RTS to space-sim. when you get comfortable with one way you must switch to the next which is very different.

It's fun for a while but the space age is very confusing at times, with messages from everywhere and the need to travel all the way back to your home planet because some raiders are attacking. which is wierd since last time i checked i had built a hell of a lot of planes which disappeared out of nowhere when i reached space age...

the game is good until you reach the tribal stage. after that it becomes pointless, repetitive and very long...

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3 out of 4 users found this user opinion helpful.
2 stars

DRM ruined everything!!!!

by jfly1977 on September 10, 2008

Pros: It had potential!

Cons: DRM protection, you install 3 times and you are done, NO THANKS!

Summary: I was so excited about this game until I found out about the DRM protection, this game had so much potential.

Make it DRM-FREE and it will break records!!

EA ...

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Summary: I was so excited about this game until I found out about the DRM protection, this game had so much potential.

Make it DRM-FREE and it will break records!!

EA you did it again!!

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2 out of 3 users found this user opinion helpful.
7 stars

A long wait for a "good" game

by luthmhor on September 4, 2008

Pros: Very attractive to all ages. Creator tool is alot of fun.

Cons: Ordinary graphics.

Summary: I, like alot of people, have waited simply AGES for this game. From the moment I saw the first promo movie I had to have it. Earlier this week my ...

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Summary: I, like alot of people, have waited simply AGES for this game. From the moment I saw the first promo movie I had to have it. Earlier this week my dream came true and I rushed home with a Galactic Edition of Spore (limited edition boxed version. In Australia this set me back a tidy $139. Now I've played the game this week for about 18 hours (I know, can't be that bad, right?) and I've had alot of enjoyment from it. It's a cool game, no two ways about it. I am, however, somewhat disappointed. The creature graphics are good, but the landscape graphics are beyond terrible. Not to mention boring and pretty much all the same. The gameplay, while temporarily amusing, is very shallow. No story developement as such, and no real purpose. Also not alot of variation. If you're looking for an "Adventure" game, this isn't it. I guess I had high expectations given that Sims 2 is a favourite in our house and is revisited over and over again by the whole family. Spore lacks even this level of complexity. I think Spore will have the short life of most other games, play it to death and then put it in storage.

Bottom line? If I hadn't waited so long and read so much hype about it before it was released - if it was just any old game I found on the shelf at the game shop, I'd say it was a good fun game.

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2 out of 3 users found this user opinion helpful.
4 stars

Huge Letdown

by markvol on October 12, 2008

Pros: Creature Creator is very fun to use.
Good graphics.

Cons: Everything past the first stage is boring and very very simple.
When I say its simple... I mean its like a step above pac-man.

Summary: I have been looking forward to this game since I heard about it from a friend 2 years ago and couldn't wait to get it. When I installed it ...

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Summary: I have been looking forward to this game since I heard about it from a friend 2 years ago and couldn't wait to get it. When I installed it the first stage was a lot of fun but even then I noticed that the design of my creature didn't matter that much. Put a cilia in the front of the creature? Yep it still somehow propels it forward. After that all of the design (which is what this game was really hyped about) doesn't matter. You can put 5 legs on it and it'll still run as fast as its fastest feet model. The design aspect is purely for aesthetics. The stages past the first cellular one are not fun. Not fun. And its a game. The combat is some kind of quasi-turn based mess and the dancing and posing is about as fun as playing memory all alone. And the combat doesn't get much better as the game progresses. It gets worse. Don't buy it. If you are a gamer and love video games you will get even more bored than a person who plays casually. I installed this and have played it three times. I sometimes forget I even have it.

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1 out of 1 users found this user opinion helpful.
3 stars

Disappointed and Sad

by CitizenFunk on September 10, 2008

Pros: This game has some really great visuals.
Will do a lot for the future of video game concepts.

Cons: You get board after about an hour or so and really don?t have any inspiration to return to the game.

DRM is pathetic. More of a viruses in this case but I guess that kind of goes along with the game.

Summary: I first heard about his game in late 2004 and have been watching for its release since then. Its cool for a while but then gets little disappointing as you ...

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Summary: I first heard about his game in late 2004 and have been watching for its release since then. Its cool for a while but then gets little disappointing as you move to the other stages. I love Will Wrights work and concepts on gaming. Games like the Sims are brilliant but I'm afraid this just doesn't work for some reason. The visuals are still pretty cool and I feel they are definitely pioneering new ground but playability needs some work.

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1 out of 1 users found this user opinion helpful.
2 stars

I got taken for $50

by shwacksacsgone on September 9, 2008

Pros: Something to do?

Cons: oversimplified gameplay for 2 year olds with a horrible DRM.

Summary: Spore was mildly entertaining... it's basically 3-4 games (called stages) packed together with each stage building on ideas from the outcomes of the last. I got my first world ...

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Summary: Spore was mildly entertaining... it's basically 3-4 games (called stages) packed together with each stage building on ideas from the outcomes of the last. I got my first world into space stage on day 1... not really the depth I had anticipated. Real time MMO battles and alliances in a huge universe with millions of galaxies and planets is where most of us are hoping this kind of gaming will go.

Unfortunately, EA has stated that its top DEVs are working on something far more exciting and groundbreaking for the gaming community: Microwaves that can only be plugged into 3 different power outlets before requiring a Sear's tech to come out and make sure the serial numbers match your receipt!!! ..

EA sucks.

Thanks to EA, your microwave will be safe, even in the hood.

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2 out of 4 users found this user opinion helpful.

Showing opinion 1 to 10 out of 36

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Specifications

Manufacturer: Electronic Arts Inc.
Part number: SPORE

Product Basic Spec
Platform PC
ESRB rating Everyone 10 and older -
Genre Strategy
Number of players 1 Player

Game
Developer Maxis
ESRB Everyone 10 and older

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