Creationism or Evolution? SPORE!

[Hijacker]

So I picked up Spore yesterday. I have to say, I was greatly impressed. I knew the game would be good, but I was a bit unsure if it would have the bite it needed to keep me hooked. If you haven't played it, don't let the cartoonish graphics fool you. This game is worth the cost as it's 5 games in one. Each stage of the game is a slightly simplified version of pre-existing games.

The cell stage is, by all means, pac-man meets evolution. Eat your power pellets, grow spikes, kill big mean ghosts...er cellular organisms. I definitely love that you get the feeling of you're not the biggest fish in the pond during this phase. You're trying to eat and get larger, but you're also always something's prey. Until you upgrade to the next portion of the stage and get larger than your hunter.



The creature stage is an interesting turn. You still get to evolve and create your creature through killing other species, befriending them, or rooting through skeletons (Look ma! I found a foot! Can I wear it??). Protip - Always target the alphas of each species you encounter, whether you want to eat it, or take it to the Bears game. You always get a new part for evolution that way.

The tribe stage reminded me a bit of Age of Empires. You need to hunt, fish, and gather while appeasing the other locals. You don't get to evolve anymore at this phase, so you get to dress in oddly coloured, and strange fitting garments. And you get to make instruments to win people over through song, or you can bash their skulls in with weapons of awesomeness. It took me seriously 5 minutes to figure out I needed to have instruments equipped to sing for opposing tribes.

The civilization stage is pretty much civilization (Sid Meier) sans the turn based grid systems. You get minute control over each city, but you have total control over a number of vehicles. You need to go to each city in the world and conquer them either through evangelical work, or by brute military force. I found it best to just keep sending steady streams of troops to each city when you attack rather than try to build up squads of units (granted you want to start with sending your max troop count in first)

I'm at the space stage trying to figure out what needs to be done. This portion of the game seems to be more of a solo adventure much like the creature stage. So It's the creature stage...in space! You Han Solo your way to many different star systems to make friends, colonize planets, search for pirate treasure, and make the Kessel Run in under 12 parsecs. From what I've read, this part of the game is absolutely open ended and the longest section of the game. You earn badges from doing missions for your people and the other cultures you encounter. As you earn badges, you rank up allowing you to eventually build a fleet (I have 2 ships in my fleet right now). You can conquer through force, befriend everyone, buy them out, but you need to make your civilization top dawg of the space food chain.

[Encryptshun]

Holy crap, Bart. How many hours did you spend playing this over the weekend?

[xekushnr]

It took me a few minutes to figure out the instrument thing too, haha. I was sitting there trying to befriend a tribe screaming "HOW DO I USE THE F**KING HORN?!" I've had it for almost a week now, thanks to a street date breach over in Australia. I'll buy it for real later this week.

[Eikon]

This game sounds really interesting to me.

I remember seeing a "making of Spore" video like a year ago.. then got excited about it.. then sort of forgot all about it for a while.

Now it's finally out.

I imagine it's like other Civ games where you can play it really quick or really long marathon. Sounds like a fun game.

I don't have the time or money for it right now.

[Encryptshun]

I was intrigued when I downloaded the creature creator. Then I was when I started seeing all the "sporn" videos. I'm still about it.

[Hijacker]

I haven't ran across any pen15 monsters in space mode yet. The game uses player creations to populate your galaxy, which is cool. It also bases the computer AI based on how the player played his creation. I've been reading some nastey reports where people get off their planet to encounter 2 warfaring races that constantly invade their homeworld.

I can only hope that I'm wreaking havoc on some poor noob by proxy.

Chad, I picked it up yesterday and pumped maybe...10 hours or so in it. I just started the space stage when I quit last night. The first few stages can be knocked out pretty quickly. Sadly enough, their the funnest stages.

[Encryptshun]

Cool.

So, what's your opinion on this being a PC game rather than console? Necessary? No? Preferable?

[Hijacker]

The controls are already fairly simple, but I don't think a console controler would be able to allow you to do some of the things you need to do effeciently. The early stages where you just run around beating people over the head with sticks and then saronade them with didgerydoos (however the frak you spell that!), can be done on a console controller easily. Civ mode gets a bit more complex, but could still be done. Space mode is where I would feel bogged down with a controller. There are tabs for your space ship's different functions that help organize what you can do. It's a simple 2 click process to use an ability (click tab click ability).

Also, if you've ever played an RTS on a console, you could understand how the later sections could easily get bogged down on a controller.

My main complaint right now about Civ mode, aside from the fact that it's too simple to beat, is that you don't have the ability to group units into hotkeyed selected groups. Thankfully you can select all of your units at once and just move them together, which is the best way to take enemy cities anyways. Trying to send small groups is just asking to get wiped out.

Oh! This is what exactly went through my head when I got to civ mode and had to capture a spice guyser





And that really becomes apparent in space mode. Your source of income is spice.

[krazydriver]

I picked this up yesterday as well. Didn't get alot of time to play, finished cellular and got partially into the creature phase.

It plays decent. My biggest gripe isn't with the game, but rather how EA is going to try to milk this for expansions over the next 5 years or something.

[MinisterofDOOM]

I've really been enjoying Spore. The cell stage is super simple but still a lot of fun. I've had time to get part-way through the Creature stage so far.

The most interesting part for me was the way the game took my creatures in a different direction than I had intended for them--but I'm not the least bit disappointed in what my creation has become, even though it's very different than what I was "hoping" for. The game really does have a very nice "evolutionary" feel to it.

I have yet to run into any creatures NOT created by Maxis. But I'm pleased with the creativity, variety, and humor seen in the creations I have encountered. I hunted a race of six-legged cow-monsters to extinction, chuckling all the way.

[redtop91]

I love how confusing a picture of the game this thread paints. It seems like a game that is trying to be everything at once which is odder than all hell. Luckily I like odd. Unluckily Rock Band 2 emerges within the same pay period.

[Hijacker]

Spore's only $50 and tax.

MoD, I've ran into some pretty whacky creatures so far. most from Maxis, but a few from players. I think you can set your game's sporepedia to pull more from user created content than from Maxis' database.

My neighbouring star system is populated by a bunch fo living bananas with gorrilla feet and hands. And a mustachio.

I spent hours playing Space of Sporecraft last night. It's fun, but a tedious grind. And I hate how everyone has their own military forces, but they HAVE to have you come deal with every little problem (pirates, aliens, ecological disaster).

I ran into a problem last night where I almost couldn't save a planet's ecology. You get called in to kill a bunch of creatures of one type (usually 5) that are infected with some virus. Your radar points you towards them (it's auditory for relative position, and the radar circles your ship emits points to your target), you see them walking around, encricled by a cloud of infectious disease, and you space laser them to China. However, my radar's auditory signal wouldn't work on this mission. And then my radar kept pointing me to some artifact on the planet's surface instead of the infected creatures. I failed to kill 3 sets of creatures because of this. The 4th set (possibly last set) I managed to save, which won the mission. And the game does a great job of having pirates raid your colonies when you're doing timed jobs like this too -_-

[krazydriver]

Well i finished the creature phase yesterday, it was quite enjoyable to play through the whole thing.Should've done more health mods to my creature before hand, but whatever.

I lol'd at the cutscene for starting tribal mode. Now i just gotta get the hang of that.

[Hijacker]

This has been bugging me for a few minutes this afternoon. You can domesticate animals in tribal mode, but I don't know what you get from doing that. I got an achievement for getting 2 of different types.

[PorkChopExpress]

just went out and got it. computer will not play it. maybe next year.

[MinisterofDOOM]

I've "completed" the Creature phase, but am spending the time to actually complete everything (befriend or demolish every species and find all the parts). It's really paying off...I've got a LOT of DNA to spend right now and am very pleased with my character. When I move on to the Tribal stage and can ditch some of the charm-type crap, I'll have a race of seriously nasty monsters.

Universal domination, here I come!

Here's what my Herbertians look like right now:http://www.spore.com/sporepedi...90612

I still have a lot of races to deal with in creature mode, so it's not finished yet.

[Hijacker]

I spent last night in space mode trying to keep a war faring race from demolishing my satellite outposts. They decided they wanted me to pay some rediculous tribute. LIke 600,000+ spore bucks. Which I couldn't do because I was in the middle of saving up to buy some star systems from my neighbours.

They want war, I'll give 'em war. They'll wish they had never crossed paths with me. My civilization was going the peaceful, buyout route for domination, but these guys just will find out what it means to get on the badside of the FRONKS!

[f1seb]

I was going to purchase this game, and they I read this about it. I'll just let you guys play it and post your experiences.

http://www.custompc.co.uk/blog...d-drm/

Plus I checked out all the Amazon.com ratings on anything spore related, and it seems this is quite a headache.

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb...0&y=0

Really awaiting to see if EA has anything to say about this. If they throw that Securom in Red Alert 3 and Warhammer I will probably never buy another EA product ever again.

But, while we're at it. Do any of you guys have any cool screen shots of the game? Big battles? The massive size of space?

[Encryptshun]

I don't get the Amazon thing. Every single one-star review I read came from someone who hadn't even played the game. They were all just bitching about the DRM system.

Bart, what up wit dat? You really have to pay $50 to access the MO 'verse?

[Hijacker]

The Amazon reviews got trolled by internet e-thugs. Some people pretty much went on there and 1 starred it on purpose, citing the DRM issues. The DRM in the game pretty much lets you activate it 3 times, and then you call it in. Just like a Microsoft product. The DRM was supposed to call in like every so often to confirm your copy is still a registered copy, but that was dropped. Now you just don't get user created content if you can't log into the EA servers (ie pirate hack)

You don't pay anything extra to get user created content. The game conencts to the internet at the beginning and populates your galaxy on the fly with user created content from the spore-pedia.

There are options for the spore-pedia to pull primarily from RSS feeds to utilize as your populace. You get some 'interesting' creations that way. Especially if you stumble into particular sporepedia groups. The Penny Arcade group has some very awesome creature/building/vehicle designs. One made a Cloverfield monster in hopes it would be dropped on someone's early stage world and made into an epic creature. Epic creatures pretty much one shot the PC and his pack and have 1,000 hit points.

[Encryptshun]

There are options for the spore-pedia to pull primarily from RSS feeds to utilize as your populace. You get some 'interesting' creations that way. Especially if you stumble into particular sporepedia groups. The Penny Arcade group has some very awesome creature/building/vehicle designs. One made a Cloverfield monster in hopes it would be dropped on someone's early stage world and made into an epic creature. Epic creatures pretty much one shot the PC and his pack and have 1,000 hit points.

First, pretty much anything that comes from the mind of Gabe and Tycho is gold, but that Cloverfield idea makes me want to buy the game immediately. That is awesome.

[Hijacker]

I saw a pic of it on page 60 something of the PA forums thread on Spore. The guy said "I made this in hopes it goes epic on someone" Then a few pages later, someone posted up the cloverfield monster being all epic on his screen.

[Encryptshun]

[krazydriver]

Now that i've gotten up to the space stage i wanted to add some more of my thoughts.

First off, the DRM issue. The ONLY thing that still annoys me is the 3 install per cd key thing. And even then i think if you call/email them they can change it. So that's not too bad.

I'd tried to balance my creature and play a mix of ways...... but it didn't work, so i just conquer and destroy everything.

Stage by stage review:

Cell stage, it really is fancy pacman. There's not much to do other then the excitement of gaining all the pieces. But as was mentioned it really was meant to be a tutorial.

Creature stage, it will eventually be addresssed with expansions, but i'd like a larger variety of parts. The stage itself is quite fun to play, but it feels like it goes by way to quickly.

Tribal stage, finished this in ~40 min. stage is fun. Wish it had quick keys for unit selection, or at least would zoom to someone if you double click their icon. Other thing was the minimap, either rotate the map so the arrow always faces up, or don't allow the camera to rotate. It's not too bad if you click to locations to get there, but if your trying to side-scroll you have no idea where the camera is going to go. I booked it through this stage by wantonly slaughtering most of the tribes, then playing didgeridoo for the rest. Fun + easy.

Civ stage.this gets better. Vehicle editors are fun. The whole spice thing overall made me lol. But if when you first get to this stage you grab all the spice blows real quick your set. The money will be pouring in. Then just buy out all the other cities on your continent. Very enjoyable, would like quick keys again though.

Space.Played for awhile last night, controls aren't too bad. The missions are generally kind of fun. Biggest issue i have is the constant running back and forth to colonies to pick up spice. They can only store 5 max, and they fill up ridiculously fast. What am i doing wrong!?!?!?!

Overall, i'm quite impressed. The initial DRM scare had me worried for a bit, then a bunch of people who had overhyped themselves and said it didn't live up to their expectations in reviews. But what are we looking for in a game anyways? an enjoyable distraction, and this fits the bill for me. Could it be better? Sure, but we know with without a doubt that there will be expansions for this. Probably 8-10 over the next couple years. Sadly i think i'm hooked....

[Hijacker]

Wait till you get a little further into space mode, and you have someone start hating your guts. You'll find that you have to drop what you're doing a lot to rush out to a colony or your home world and save it. That's the only really frustrating part of the game to me. Once you unlock uber turrets, it isn't as bad I hear, but I have no clue how you unlock them yet.

The constant need for baby sitting is my only real complaint about space mode.

I restarted the game last night to play more of a herbivore creature. I also found the game takes 3 times longer if you play a creature with no legs. And you can't dance. You can't impress the chicas without legs.

If you up the tera score of a planet and drop multiple colonies on it (t2 and t3), you can up the maximum capacity of a planet's spice storage. I'm assuming it's 5 per colony. I made a t2 planet last night, I just haven't dropped a colony on it to test that theory out yet.

My space slugs I started last night got a raw deal on colored spice. I only have red and yellow around me, which are like the two worst for prices. I found a planet with pink, but it's so close to the sun I need to cool the surface off to establish an ecosphere. And I have no clue how to get the temperature changing tools.

[krazydriver]

^ lol yeah the colored spice thing is fun.I hit it off pretty good, i have easy access to red, yellow, blue, and greenFirst races i contacted only paid like 480 for spice, then i found another race that paid 14k for blue and green.... and i had ~20 of each!!

I also have access to the temperature tools already... i finished all the non-warfare quests for my home world and i think that's how i got them...maybe it was someone else. The ice comets costs like 90k per shot, but i could probably bump a planet in my system to T2 if i did it.

[Hijacker]

Oh yeah! Fragging comets and meteors. Totally forgot about those mofos. I haven't had to alter a planet's temp yet, so I forgot those things are available.

Hmm...I'll have to check if I have them yet or not.

[f1seb]

Anybody else having a problem with trying to register the game online? I'm getting the "can't validate the cd key used to install this game" or some stupid BS error. Bought my copy at EB, how the hell is it invalid.

[Encryptshun]

did you buy it used?

[f1seb]

Used copies of Spore already exist?

No I got it brand new. I went on EA website and looked for help Spore, and it had that same error listed as one of the top ones. I click on it, and oops page doesn't exist 404 not found pops up.

EA is not making this easy at all.