Posted on September 7, 2008 - by Jordan H
Spore
If my calculations are correct, then Spore came out exactly 8 years and 7 months after The Sims took the world by storm. From what I’ve played so far today, then it wouldn’t surprise me at all if Spore did for the new generation of games, exactly what The Sims did to the previous generation - reinvent the game.
Spore is a combination of many things. In case you hadn’t realised yet, the man behind this epic is no other than Will Wright, the creator of the other epic I mentioned above (: The game has the personality, relationship and skill aspects of The Sims at its heart, but branches out to have the SimCity element of gameplay along with a great amount of customisation options.
In the game, you start off as a cell, swimming around in a very big ocean. You can be a herbivore or a carnivore, and as you eat more food (and other fish if you like), you earn more DNA ‘bits’ which can be used when mating to expand your character. Soon you end up on land, and your creature can be seen in its full 3D glory. Your creature develops land-life-like features like legs, hands, and even wings. Your task is to work your way up, by either creating alliances with other creatures, or killing them off and having them for supper. (The herbivores among us will be glad to know that there are fruit trees around too!)
The game moves on to the city-like aspects, with the “Tribal Phase”, “Civilization Phase” and lastly the “Space Phase”. The latter of these phases is like all Sim-games, never ending. There continues to be a wealth of things you can do when flying between planets.
The character customisation is amazing. You couldn’t create two characters the same if you tried. The way you can develop your character, and how your character can develop personality-wise too. There is just too much to mention to fit it in this article!
I bought the Galactic Edition from GAME for £39.99. It includes an Art book and two DVDs, plus a poster and an expanded manual. I also picked up the Prima Guide, which was £12.99. So far I’ve only managed to play the first two phases (mostly owing to the fact that my sister decided she wanted to play on it all evening), but the game seems so intuitive and new, pushing boundaries where games have never gone before.
There’s only one gripe that I have with the game - the gameplay can be a bit slow. There are times when you feel as if you’re repeating yourself a lot (mainly in the second phase), continuing to do the same things - alliance or kill - over and over.
However, I’m really looking forward to playing the further levels and creating buildings, vehicles and even spaceships too! (: