Spore
I'm not going to say "Spore Sucks", but it is a deeply flawed game. Which is sad, but I bought it for myself for my birthday (and a Tivo and a "free" HDTV) and I was expecting something more or different.
Right now, I'm on the space stage after enjoying the first several stages. The game is divided into several modes of play as you shepherd a specie into an intelligent, space-faring race. First, the cell phase is like a tutorial. It's very basic, just gets your creature onto land as a herbivore, carnivore, or omnivore and with initial customizations. The creature phase as your creature exploring a 3D world, fighting with other creatures, gathering food, and gradually getting new body parts and intelligence. This plays like the cell stage: you control one creature and it's largely about exploring your environment and finding new tricks. The next two phases though are completely different: After your creature becomes intelligent, you enter the tribal stage where you have to conquer or make peace with other tribes. It plays like an old copy of "Warcraft II", except more basic. You control groups, not individuals, and mob combat rules. Once you unify your tribes, you repeat the same in the nation phase except now you have planes, ships, and tanks at your disposal. And finally, you unify the whole world and head out into space.
Space is where the game falls apart. That's not to say that there aren't problems earlier, but overall the game feels balanced and good for its difficulty level. The play style (and, annoyingly, even the controls) are different from phase to phase, but on the whole it's a nice experience. The stages aren't too long, the goals are fun to reach, and the world mostly works. Sure, by the time you get to civilization stage (where you are designing tanks instead of your specie), the previous several stages feel an awful lot like a complicated process for creating a Spore "Mii" (the avatar system used in the Nintendo Wii), but at least you had fun doing it.
In space, you are back to controlling a single ship. You explore other stars, do missions for alien species, terraform planets, sell "spice" to many different markets, etc. And that's fun. But, inevitably, you don't please a nation. Or, worse, you provoke one, and then it's an insane amount of having your home planet beaten to a pulp every few minutes, losing colonies to raiding parties, and spending all your time defending instead of doing the things the game makes fun. And this is on the EASIEST LEVEL. (And, although you are bound to a single ship for warfare, none of the races that you compete against are bound to the same. It's just wave after wave of ships much more powerful than you. And there are upgrades out there for the weapons, but I die well before I unlock any of them.)
There is hints of greatness here, but ultimately it falls flat. The stage is longer than the entire remainder of the game combined. And, if you get yourself locked into a spot where you can't win, you need to re-play all the other stages to get the bonuses that you had. (You can start at the space stage without the bonuses, but at a disadvantage. And since it's so difficult, I suspect you need them.)
So, I'm frustrated. I like what they've done, but I wish they had waited a couple more months to release the game. They could have made space a more balanced and fun experience. As it is now, it's just damn frustrating and you waste so many hours before you get yourself killed with no way to go back to a safe point.
My recommendation? Wait a month or two before buying. It's possible that the insanity that is the space level will be fixed in a bug release or something and it'll become more playable. Perhaps not, of course, but I can hope.
Right now, I'm on the space stage after enjoying the first several stages. The game is divided into several modes of play as you shepherd a specie into an intelligent, space-faring race. First, the cell phase is like a tutorial. It's very basic, just gets your creature onto land as a herbivore, carnivore, or omnivore and with initial customizations. The creature phase as your creature exploring a 3D world, fighting with other creatures, gathering food, and gradually getting new body parts and intelligence. This plays like the cell stage: you control one creature and it's largely about exploring your environment and finding new tricks. The next two phases though are completely different: After your creature becomes intelligent, you enter the tribal stage where you have to conquer or make peace with other tribes. It plays like an old copy of "Warcraft II", except more basic. You control groups, not individuals, and mob combat rules. Once you unify your tribes, you repeat the same in the nation phase except now you have planes, ships, and tanks at your disposal. And finally, you unify the whole world and head out into space.
Space is where the game falls apart. That's not to say that there aren't problems earlier, but overall the game feels balanced and good for its difficulty level. The play style (and, annoyingly, even the controls) are different from phase to phase, but on the whole it's a nice experience. The stages aren't too long, the goals are fun to reach, and the world mostly works. Sure, by the time you get to civilization stage (where you are designing tanks instead of your specie), the previous several stages feel an awful lot like a complicated process for creating a Spore "Mii" (the avatar system used in the Nintendo Wii), but at least you had fun doing it.
In space, you are back to controlling a single ship. You explore other stars, do missions for alien species, terraform planets, sell "spice" to many different markets, etc. And that's fun. But, inevitably, you don't please a nation. Or, worse, you provoke one, and then it's an insane amount of having your home planet beaten to a pulp every few minutes, losing colonies to raiding parties, and spending all your time defending instead of doing the things the game makes fun. And this is on the EASIEST LEVEL. (And, although you are bound to a single ship for warfare, none of the races that you compete against are bound to the same. It's just wave after wave of ships much more powerful than you. And there are upgrades out there for the weapons, but I die well before I unlock any of them.)
There is hints of greatness here, but ultimately it falls flat. The stage is longer than the entire remainder of the game combined. And, if you get yourself locked into a spot where you can't win, you need to re-play all the other stages to get the bonuses that you had. (You can start at the space stage without the bonuses, but at a disadvantage. And since it's so difficult, I suspect you need them.)
So, I'm frustrated. I like what they've done, but I wish they had waited a couple more months to release the game. They could have made space a more balanced and fun experience. As it is now, it's just damn frustrating and you waste so many hours before you get yourself killed with no way to go back to a safe point.
My recommendation? Wait a month or two before buying. It's possible that the insanity that is the space level will be fixed in a bug release or something and it'll become more playable. Perhaps not, of course, but I can hope.