Spore!

YM

LVL100 YM
aa
Dec 5, 2007
7,135
6,056
Just played through the cell stage, really cool to be able to eat the creatures that were trying to eat you 10 minutes ago. Pretty scarey when you first see one much larger than yourself...

Ok guys, start posting your names on it so we can add 'buddies' and avoid penismonsters at all costs.
 

Vander

L8: Fancy Shmancy Member
Feb 16, 2008
506
215
Yeah, how in the hell did Europe get a game before us? Ah well, only one more day. I guess it's about time Europe got something first.
 

Bonafide

L6: Sharp Member
Mar 18, 2008
313
25
I'm just shocked that apparently a good number of folks around here pirate games. I'm not interested in a flame-war, but I expect better from you guys. :thumbdown::love:

EA doesnt deserve money. Especially with their 3 time install limit BS they are putting on their games these days :thumbdown: . The install limit doesnt stop piracy it just annoys legit customers.
 

Shmitz

Old Hat
aa
Nov 12, 2007
1,128
746
So now I've played it, and I realize how idiotic it would be to try to rate the game as a whole, so I'll just give a basic impression of the various stages:
Cell: 8/10
Creature: 10/10
Tribe: 9/10
Civilization: 10/10
Space: ?/10

I don't feel I can even offer an opinion on the space stage yet because it's broken to the point of being incomplete. If it were only slightly broken, I'd give it something low, but at it's current state I feel EA/Maxis has to patch it so that, at the very least, the AI is less aggressive. It is not an ignorable situation.

Fortunately the Creature, Tribe, and Civ stages are extremely replayable, so I'm just going to be raising creature after creature to planetary domination until Maxis does something about the space stage. Then all my happy, misshapen children will be able to roam the galaxy together. :)
 

Apex_

L3: Member
Jan 23, 2008
122
14
Whenever someone asks me about Spore, I tell them this (ok, I tell them the first paragraph):

The game is by and large the sum of its parts. The change in scale from cell to creature to tribe to civ to space is smooth and really well done. Each stage by itself is fairly shallow, involving picking one of two goals on a per-enemy basis more or less. It's fun simple, not stupid simple, however.

The editors and having your creations used in future games are the focus of much of the replayability of the game. My only gripe with the editors is there are many things you simply can't rotate, like feet for example or vehicle body sections. Wait, make that two...the texture application for vehicles and buildings can make some really awful decisions on texture direction. If there's a way to align textures I don't know about then scratch that one off the list.

The animation system is great and rarely hiccups, and the social animations are downright hilarious.

The game may not be the ultimate game of all time, and may fall short of the insane amount of hype it's accrued, but it's a very imaginative and quality game despite some faults.
 

Vander

L8: Fancy Shmancy Member
Feb 16, 2008
506
215
EA doesnt deserve money. Especially with their 3 time install limit BS they are putting on their games these days :thumbdown: . The install limit doesnt stop piracy it just annoys legit customers.

That's a perfectly legitimate argument. One which is keeping me from buying the game right now myself. However, that doesn't justify stealing the game in protest either. I just won't buy it until they patch out the DRM. After they do, I'll be happy to slap my greenbacks on the barrel head.

So now I've played it, and I realize how idiotic it would be to try to rate the game as a whole, so I'll just give a basic impression of the various stages:
Cell: 8/10
Creature: 10/10
Tribe: 9/10
Civilization: 10/10
Space: ?/10

Even with the final stage being unfinished, those are some high marks my friend! Here's hoping they patch out the DRM soon!

BTW, I hear that gamers have banded together and busted Spore down to a 1.5 (out of 5, I think) score on Amazon.com because of the DRM issue. Those wacky gamers!
 
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Bonafide

L6: Sharp Member
Mar 18, 2008
313
25
exactly. All this security stuff is just stupid. There is already an available pirated version of spore floating on the net so what did DRM/securerom achieve this time? Nothing but rubbing people the wrong way.
 

DJive

Cake or Death?
aa
Dec 20, 2007
1,465
741
exactly. All this security stuff is just stupid. There is already an available pirated version of spore floating on the net so what did DRM/securerom achieve this time? Nothing but rubbing people the wrong way.

It doesn't allow them to share user created "stuffs" *al la no network access in-game*
 

World Of Frisbee Crisis

L2: Junior Member
Mar 31, 2008
60
8
It doesn't allow them to share user created "stuffs" *al la no network access in-game*
Actually, I've heard of ways to get custom content for the pirated version.
So basically all you get extra with the legal copy is DRM and SecuROM.
 

TheDarkerSideofYourShadow

L10: Glamorous Member
Apr 12, 2008
792
286
Just played through the cell stage, really cool to be able to eat the creatures that were trying to eat you 10 minutes ago. Pretty scarey when you first see one much larger than yourself...

Ok guys, start posting your names on it so we can add 'buddies' and avoid penismonsters at all costs.

Name: TheDarkestShadow
 

DJive

Cake or Death?
aa
Dec 20, 2007
1,465
741

MrAlBobo

L13: Stunning Member
Feb 20, 2008
1,059
219
So now I've played it, and I realize how idiotic it would be to try to rate the game as a whole, so I'll just give a basic impression of the various stages:
Cell: 8/10
Creature: 10/10
Tribe: 9/10
Civilization: 10/10
Space: ?/10

I see the need to respond to this...
My take of the scores is more like this:
Cell: 9/10 A fun little game, reminds me of the flash game fishy in a way...my biggest annoyance is that it does not let you grow indefinitely...i mean its fun to see just what you can do when you go overboard.
Creature: 10/10 Epic ;) The game would have been worth it even if this was the only mode, but again...it cripples your growth.
Tribe: 5/10 ...fail...plain and simple. I hate rts games so no doubt i have a bias...but even i can tell it lacks strategy...just doesn't seem normal when the easiest way to win is by sending your entire tribe in a group to attack/ convert
Civ: 6/10 Same problem as tribal stage...the best way to win is to send all your guys in to attack (or in my case convert <_<) one city then rebuild and send everyone to another city...
Space: 9/10 I do not happen to think this stage is broken...sure when you start you are frequently attacked, but realistically all you need to do is find out who is attacking you, find their planet and destroy them, the further away your enemies are the less they will attack, and is that still bugs you buy an uber turret and let it defend for you. Anyways...this is exactly what i like in a war type strategy game, only controlling one unit, supplying that unit with buildings and war, choosing how you want to deal with people. Unfortunately this stage seems to crash occasionally...ive played the space stage for 15ish hours and its crashed twice...so...save frequently

Edit: my name remains the same in everything...but my stuff sucks so much it will burn your eyes! more interested in finishing the game before i get too creative
 

grazr

Old Man Mutant Ninja Turtle
aa
Mar 4, 2008
5,441
3,814
Thats what i was saying and everyone was getting upset at me =( It feels like 5 different game trials rolled into one. Its simple gameplay, but enough to make you want more.. sadly there is no more and you realize that this IS the game =(

That's what i found. Each time i started to get interested, it shoves me onto the next phase. The cell stage was very pretty, i was dissapointed that the next stage rendered your characters abilities obsolete and that the most efficient evolution of your character was to delete all it's features and start fresh. I thought it would have stuck closer to the idea of evolution being progressive. The only thing that remained the same was the skin colour of my creature and the only thing that made it look unique was the fact that i had kept features from my cell stage that were rendered irrelevant; just for easthetic purposes.

The tribal stage was just crap.. i'm not sure what to say. It sort of explains the path you take in the civ stage, but little more than suggest what you might do. It doesn't last very long but it takes its time for what it is. Civ stage was quite fun, but i ran to all the spice locations and owned most of the map before the second civ got running. Blew up one city and the rest surrendered. Dissapointed again.

The space stage might take a while but i'm stuck constantly trading and terraforming, and it's tedious as hell with only the one ship to control, plus the game keeps bugging out and deleting all my spice.

The buildings left a lot to be desired and though i thought the vehicles were pretty awesome, the texturing let it down immensely.
 
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MrAlBobo

L13: Stunning Member
Feb 20, 2008
1,059
219
Neither Tribal nor Civ stages are RTS, nor are they supposed to be. The entire game is a simulation of development and consequence. Each stage is an exploration of how your life forms will behave at that point in their development.

they are rts in the most basic form...strategy

regardless i hate directing a hoard and watching them fight...it always seems boring when you are not personally involved

and agreed grazr, when the cell and creature stage ends, they should not stop you from collecting dna and continuing your growth and teraforming becomes trivial once you are able to hold 9 plants, 6 herbivores and 3 carnivores at the same time...
 

ChronoTriggerFan

L420: High Member
Feb 3, 2008
434
73
My comments on this:
Cell: 8/10 Fun little game, and any annoyances that you have such as being so slow or what ever, can be solved by you. I takes a little while to get what your weakness are first, because sometimes its one giant creature after another!

On an non score affecting note, the game crashes after I save the cell/creature, when you put legs on him. It happens when its downloading creatures and such. Now about 70% of you are going to say its your sucky laptops fault! Buy a new one! I don't care if you don't have enough money! etc. But, I have updated vista, my graphics card drivers, and other various things, it just doesn't fix it. And it's 99.99999% likely to be a coding problem because that's the ONLY time it has ever crashed for me. not when transitioning from creature to tribal, tribal to civ, or civ to space.

Creature: 9/10 My only fear with this was that each game was going to have all the parts available to them at the start, and so that each creature would succeed each with same basic strategies of part choice. But, you have to find each part, and you don't get every part at the end either. It has some nice choices that could go on for eons and adds immensely to the replay-ability.

Tribal 5/10 What i don't like about this is that everyone is aggressive. Even if you work so hard to get some of you people over to play a song, while your tribe is being attacked, you still have to get them fruit, then play them a song again. And once you win alliance with them, they do NOTHING aside from give you an occasional fruit basket, and although the people bringing the basket will help you fight, they die a disgracing death about mid way a minute battle. And not being able to get some helpful items until you kill the second to last tribe, like the fishing spears, ruined the usefulness of them. And the un-creativity of it bores me. You can go and work really hard to get a useless alliance, which wasted you about 10 minutes, where you could have just rampaged them to their death. or you can use the shortcut!

Civ: 6/10 So because I restrained from being a megalomaniac in tribal, i could not be one in civ. Instead i had to be a mass converter (explained later). I managed to capture about 2 geysers in the beginning, and then set out a couple of tanks to convert the city next to me. I could not trade, or kill them, i had to have a big hologram go brainwash them. So eventually, 4 city conversions later, i manage to get a military city! but guess what, i have to make a brand new set of vehicles and buildings, completely destroying the flow of the game. Not to mention that the textures on vehicles never fit perfectly. they are unaligned and sloppy, unlike any other builders. And a couple more conversions later, i get a neat little ability that converts all the remaining cities! is not playing the game fun or something? And not to mention i did not get to trade once, so i don't even know how to do a trade, or how its good. not stressing the creative element that civ had the potential for.

Space N/A I can't rate this yet, because i haven't completed it yet. But i did not find aliens to be overly aggressive, because i was too busy doing the stupidest quests for them. Doing work isn't very fun to me, so I refused to play it any more. Yes, yes i know you could just blow up the aliens, but i can't Terra form, or get any other tools without doing about 10 quests for them, finally get to make a trade system, and other stuff that really doesn't appeal to me.
 

MrAlBobo

L13: Stunning Member
Feb 20, 2008
1,059
219
On an non score affecting note, the game crashes after I save the cell/creature, when you put legs on him. It happens when its downloading creatures and such. Now about 70% of you are going to say its your sucky laptops fault! Buy a new one! I don't care if you don't have enough money! etc. But, I have updated vista, my graphics card drivers, and other various things, it just doesn't fix it. And it's 99.99999% likely to be a coding problem because that's the ONLY time it has ever crashed for me. not when transitioning from creature to tribal, tribal to civ, or civ to space.

Ill blame your sucky vista :p

and yeah...there are usually 3 different ways to get any given tool...personally i like doing the odd mission...probably comes from play animal crossing alot...but yeah...i like the odd direction, always nice to be told who your war target should be ;)