Greg Wild

  Will Wright is possibly the closest gaming can get to a god. Other's have come close, but normally let themselves down at one point or another. Black and White 2 comes to mind. Peter Molyneux, you muppet. Will Wright has never really had this kind of failure; he's kept that aura of brilliance and mystique that keeps them up there between Buddha and Jesus. And like and kind of prophet or deity, he has those who perhaps don't quite see the products of his vision in the way he does. Only some will like the Sims, but no-one will deny its impact for example. Thus, Spore has for its protracted development been a different game for anyone who has read previews or watched videos of its pregnancy. The ultimate result of this, is that upon its release, a lot of people are going to be disappointed. And this does in no way affect what is a fundamentally innovative and engaging game.

 

    Depending on what you were expecting from the game, each stage - or maybe all – will come off as being banally simplistic or utterly brilliant. The first, the Cell stage plays out like Pac Man with spikes in primordial soup. Its brilliance lies in its fluidity. In order to advance, it's kill or be killed. Eat or be eaten. This is survival at its most basic; apt for the stage of evolution it represents. On the downside, there is a limited number of combinations – but then again, how many variations on it can you really get when you're dealing with such tiny, simplistic organisms? It's a stylised, simple, streamlined introduction to the game. Great so far.

 

    The next stage, the Creature stage was a disappointment for me. I was personally hoping for a more detailed ecosystem – less like a set of cat-walks for peoples creations; however excellent some of them are. For me, the problem in this stage was not a fundamental lack of complexity, since I think any huge amount more of controls or tasks would have been overkill for a game with such an open target audience, but it lacks depth. It would have been excellent to see flocks of peoples herbivores interacting with one another, with carnivores skulking the plains. Instead the creatures for the most part simply sit at their nests, waiting for me to sing to them or slap them in the face till they fall over. Over and over and over. The interface is way too much like every other game too – it felt hard trying to express a creature when its personality comes down to a choice of buttons. I'm not going to defend this stage as being part of Wills vision, I truly did think it was awful. It – or rather the nature of the rest of the game – does somewhat redeem itself by show casing some genuinely brilliant player created creatures in game. Particularly the puppet master. Easily my favourite creature so far.

 

    Okay. Next. The Tribal stage. A marked improvement, and for me, it's a satisfying departure from the overly interface ridden creature stage. Here your tribe's personality is governed by actions rather than tool bars, and it feels on the whole a lot more natural. Watching your tribe of frogs holding other frogs attempt to take down a giant beer tankard is infinitely amusing too. It's also genuinely interesting how your creature's attributes govern the way your creatures go about their tasks. You gave them wings? They'll glide about. Stealth masters? They'll manoeuvre themselves into position carefully before striking or raiding the enemy. Where before the creature stage manifested its procedural generation features in fairly basic terms, quite simply dictating what weapons or social tools a creature had, the tribal stage takes the creature and its attributes, and gives it personality. Brilliant.

 

    Once again however, the Civilisation stage is a bit of a mixed bag. All the developments in the previous stage is reduced to simply dictating which superpower you are assigned on the get go, and the type of “attack power” the units of your first are assigned. Imagine a world where the whole of human development produced nothing more significant than a single invention by which the whole of civilisation is determined. That's essentially what you're given. On the other hand, you are given chance to define your creations in new ways of expression. The building and unit tools, like the creature tools, offer immense variety. Using these tools you make up for the lack of depth of involving game mechanics, by simply creating your own societies. I'm particularly proud of my aforementioned Tall Frog race. Between the various editors, I've created a society where by the rich are literally carried by the poor. The poverty stricken class are mostly paid by the rich to carry them about. As a consequence the rich have evolved differently; their legs having withered and become incapable of carrying them. Their buildings are similar; the administrative centre being “Tall Street”. Their houses? High rise blocks of flats where the rich live in penthouses, the poor in squalor below. Now tell me a game where you have the kind of power to let your imagination fly?

 

    Finally, we reach the Space stage. I've complained throughout till now that the game tends to throw out all your development in the previous stage in introducing the new. The space stage is no exception. But it simply does not matter. The universe is vast. Skipping from planet to planet, collecting equipment, you unlock the potential to let your imagination run wild in creating designer societies and planets. There's restrictions – planets have to be terra-formed in order to attain the correct “terrascore” to support increasingly higher numbers of life forms, but once you get the hang of this, it becomes a joy in itself. There are balancing issues; and the empires you build, thanks to some disturbingly high numbers of attacks (I've since downloaded mods to lessen this), it can be a pain to administer, and just enjoying the sandbox style features can be hard as a result. The level of depth in this stage entirely makes up for it though. Creating an empire in one game allows you to visit them in another – maybe even reduce them into the ground if you can bring yourself to destroy your children..

 

    What I would say of Spore, is that it is not for the unimaginative. I would say that those looking for a game with complexity and depth all the way through will simply not find it if they don't know how to fully appreciate the tools at your disposal with regards the editors and various community functions – and I'm sure many of those I've heard being critical at it are those who never actually bought it, thus lacking these features. Many will also find some of the stages as I did, somewhat lacking. But honestly, you simply cannot appreciate the game if you do not appreciate what the game's vision really is: To give the player the tools to create their own societies from the Cell to Space. If you can, you will love it, despite some distractingly disappointing stages or balance issues.
 

Score: 89%