Spore: An Evolutionary Jump or Formula for Extinction?
It's finally here. After more than two years of waiting, Will Wright's evolutionary and revolutionary opus is here. After waiting two hours for it to download I installed with absolutely no problems at all. I was afraid my computer wouldn't be powerful enough to play it, but there were no such problems. Indeed it booted up, showed me the introductory video and then asked me to login. I declined as I wanted to get straight into the game. The first screen that I was presented with was almost identical to the one from the creature creator. The only difference was now I good choose a star (i.e. a save file), which I promptly did. I was disappointed to see that I had to start in the cell phase. I remember there being some comments about how you could start in any phase you wanted, or if you did start in a particular phase, how you could speed up time to enter the next phase. Unfortunately sped up time was present in this game, but not in the way it was intended. But I'll come back to that later.
The introductory video was rather cool, and for sciencey people a nice nod to the theory of exogenesis (that life on this planet was seeded from life on another planet). As so we start off as a cell. I really enjoyed this phase. The more you eat, the larger you get and your world adapts to that. The sub-quest to find the six pieces was also quite fun, as it involves you attacking (and attacking is always fun). Upgrading your creature by mating was interesting too. I particularly liked the electricity and the poison cell parts. I never did find the sixth piece (some kind of mouth I think). It is slightly frustrating at times, when you are attacking by creatures larger than yourself, and though you attempt to get away, you move too slowly. This of course could be overcome by using cilia and flagella and jet, though these cost DNA points and add to your complexity meter. It's particularly galling though when you see the speed of some of the Maxis creatures which zip around like no tomorrow. It's only a minor annoyance anyway, so I was happy. It’s a real shame that this phase isn't longer with a few more features. It was very fun. 
After you fill the progress bar at the bottom, you can choose to evolve or stay as a cell. There's not much point staying as a cell as you can no longer collect DNA points, so all that is left is to find the missing piece. Evolving is also interesting. You choose which limbs to add, and what kind of appendages it has and then the game shows you swimming off onto to dry land. You also get a summary of your time as a cell. Every time you made a physical change a new generation is born, and with it the change to modify the traits of your creature. The timeline is a nice feature. Evolution however, is harsh. The principle of evolution is that the traits that help organisms to survive are retained in offspring. However, in Spore, many of the cell phase components have no evolved forms. For example the rather cool electric attack vanishes, as does the poison (though this is sort of made up via the parts that allow you to spit). It is a bit of a let down when you spent DNA and time to get these parts to see them so callously discarded.
The first look at the world proper is interesting. It looks nice, it sounds nice, and it plays ok. The creature phase's goal is to again collect enough DNA points to evolve. Firstly, your creature now has a nest where various other members of your species like to hang out. Your nest also contains food. That's right food, as in addition to an HP bar, you have a hunger bar. Eating food restores both health and hunger. Scattered around the world are corpses of animals and these sometimes contain creature parts. To add them to your current creature, you again breed with a member of your own species to create the next generation, and if you have the DNA points you can add it. Spending DNA points in the editor does not affect your progress bar, as the progress bar shows cumulative points only. You now have a brain in this phase and as such, social interactions are now possible. Various other species inhabit your world. You can either attempt to form an alliance with them, or make them extinct (I enjoy choosing the latter). Both these actions yield DNA points. Making an alliance is done by talking to the creature and copying its actions. The four social interactions (charm, dance, sing and pose) are determined by the composition of your creature (i.e. the parts that make it up). Initially,some of these commands may not be accessible or may be at a low level. This poses a problem as sometimes you want to make an alliance only to find that your level is too low. The bar that shows the alliance settings sometimes gets so close to completion, only to fail, which is very frustrating.
The other route, extinction, is initiated by changing your stance to aggressive, then wiping out a number of creatures from that species (go for the babies, they're easier to kill). You click the creature you want to attack, then the actual attack itself. The attacks have a small cooldown period ranging from less than a second to about four seconds. Attacking is fun, though if you're on your own its easy to lose. Once you have collected sufficient DNA points, your brain will get bigger and you can add members to your party. The members can either be from your own species or any species that you are allied with. Members in your party will engage in battles with you, or aid you in alliances. For example their social interaction level will stack with yours thus giving you an advantage. You are also treated to a variety of world events such as meteor showers, storms, and alien abductions. These are rather fun and the reactions of other creatures is interesting (they all run around scared, even the brave ones).
However, this phase does have its fair share of negatives. The camera control for this is particularly annoying. Your creature moves with the arrow keys or right clicking the mouse, but your camera is also controlled similarily. Furthermore in order to maintain social interactions, the camera and your creature must not move while the creature is selected. This is extremely irritating, especially when you cannot see the interacting creature in question. Also the difficulty level does tend to rise a bit quickly (though this may be due to custom creatures being on my machine, such as Out Reach's angel which is damn strong). The repetitive alliance/extinction quest is also a bit slow as well. There aren't really any side quests, aside from migrating the herd. Also, your herd doesn't follow you into battle and you cannot get reinforcements from them (no pack mentality); you are limited to three creatures in your party and that is it. It’s a shame because in a sense it detracts from the game and makes its repetitive.
Evolution will now take you into the tribal phase, where the game becomes more RTS like. Now you have a shaman and the rest of your creatures, and a hut. The hut is the centre of your village and from it, you can spawn new creatures (up to the
limit defined by your progress), new buildings, new costumes for your creatures to wear. Like the previous phase, the goal of the tribal phase, is to ally yourself, or to drive another tribe to extinction. The first thing to note is, there is no continuity with the previous phase. Any alliances you made in the creature phase are discarded. This time your primary resource is food, which is used to buy everything. In order to ally your self with a village, you have to perform for them. You can build an assortment of buildings including a didgeridoo hut, a pipe hut, etc, and then put on a show for them in their village. You click the relevant icons that they display and this helps win them over. After allying yourself with them, you will be able to build more buildings, and they will occasionally give you gifts. You will also get a totem pole in the middle of your village.
The other route (my preferred route), is the destructive one. You can equip your creatures with weapons such as spears, clubs and axes, and then raise the enemy village to the ground. In order to succeed in the route, you must destroy their hut. Obviously the enemy shaman and troops will attempt to stop you. Your shaman is also equipped with some spells which are moderately powerful, fun to watch, but have a long cool down. As your progress through the tribal stage, you will be able to build more villagers, more buildings, and you will be able to dress them in more items. The outfits worn confer attributes such as health, attack power, social skills etc. This is important as it can turn the tide of battle/allying. Once the progress gauge is full, there really isn't much to do in this stage, which is a real pity. This stage is good fun and really needed expansion. I completed in about an hour (though the time did fly). This is also the last stage in which you interact with your creatures directly. On a quick note, I encountered Hnossa's creature (it was HUGE and extremely strong)
The civilisation stage brings with it a plethora of new editors, including anthem (music), building, ship, and vehicle. A new resource is now available; spice. Spice can be found in limited amounts at geysers. Players claim the geysers which provide x amount of spice per minute. If a geyser is already occupied, you must destroy the opposing player's building first, before you can claim the spice. You start off the civilisation phase with a city (contain a city centre/town hall) and a vehicle. Inside a city you can build a factory (which provides spice, but makes your citizens unhappy, which makes the city easier to take over and also makes it less likely for city bonuses to appear), houses (which increase population of a city making it more resilient to attack, and modulating the spice production),entertainment (which makes your citizens happier), and turrets (which provide defensive capabilities). The goal with each city is to make it profitable, well defended, and to keep the citizens happy. If you have played the city prototype you will recognise its mechanics here. Each city can build vehicles. Vehicles are initially your primary means of exploration, offense, and defence. When you make contact with another city (controlled by a different faction), you have several options. You can communicate with the city, give gifts, attempt to make an alliance or attack it. Most actions in one city will cause a response in another city, which you will be notified about in your communication window. Some civilisations will rush to defend the city, others will applaud you for it, and offer an alliance. Others still will declare war (which is always fun). Eventually, you will gain the usage of boats, which allow you to traverse water. The final part of the this stage allows the construction of planes, which are far superior to any of the vehicles encountered. Much like the other phases, the problem with this phase is its shortness, and the fact that is is disconnected from the other phases.
The space phase hath cometh upon us. This introduces you to the rocket editor. This phase is huge.....so huge that I'm still playing it. There are a lot of things to do and huge areas to explore. There is a lot of continuity within this phase, as well as many side quests, and mini quests, and there is some sort of basic plot. There are many upgrades you can obtain, and there are now several ways which you
can interact with creatures. From terraforming to waging intergalactic war, this phase seems to have it all. The difficulty level does tend to get a lot steeper in this phase, and it is a bit annoying travelling to other worlds or constantly defending yourself from attack, but it’s a lot of fun too. Sometimes, destroying all life on a planet, by modifying its ecosystem is so much more satisfying than blasting them. Causing a lush green planet to become a molten fireball is just great. I did find the galactic map a bit hard to see, as there was a lot going on, and I still haven't sussed terraforming, but this phase seems to have the most development. And if you die, the game's explanation is somewhat amusing. The review for this phase will be short since it's still ongoing for me, but I don't feel cheated by this phase as I do with the others.
All in all, Spore is a good game, though even with its extensive development time,lacks some of the features it promised, and is generally far too linear until you hit the space phase. The disconnection in the later phases, to your creature, is also surprising, since it defies the purpose of the earlier phases. Is the game revolutionary? No, but it tries damn hard, and maybe with some patches and good expansion packs it will be. Perhaps the codebase will evolve into something much more.
Review by Roxas Clone #3641
