Spore Review, Part I - Qualifications
I remember playing SimCity for the first time ever on my Super Nintendo.
I had never heard of the game before this because, as many of you from my particular gaming generation know, computer games didn’t really garner much marketplace attention because there were so few people who had actual computers.
I didn’t realize that I could have been playing it on my computer years before
The advertising and the notoriety wasn’t there, particularly because the computers which could run the more graphic-intense games were extremely expensive. Back when the most awesome game you’d ever seen ever was the bootleg freeware version of Wolfenstein 3D you got from your cousin or you uncle or whatever friend you may have had who also had a computer.
This was back when computers were for nerds and nerds alone. Back when all-inclusive internet services like Prodigy or CompuServ or the infant AOL were the portals to the world, but most of the good stuff happened on local dial-up server Bulletin Board Systems. Somewhere at my old place I still have a dot-matrix printout of all the BBS systems in Western PA which was something like a large catalog of numbers that, most of the time, were outdated and didn’t work. I remember playing text-based trade games, fantasy RPGs, and even something akin to a fantasy hockey season, all over the phone on other people’s computers. I remember that most of these places only had one line, so it was one person at a time. You had an autodialer which would continue dialing the number until it got something other than a busy signal. If you were lucky, you could be online with the BBS in an hour or two. Some of the more popular ones were nearly impossible to connect with. You had to be a severely hardcore nerd to even want to get online back then.
I digress.
SimCity for Super Nintendo was my first real exposure to the simulation genre. At first, I struggled. Really, who doesn’t when it comes to SimCity. After countless hours of gameplay, I had finally built myself a few respectable cities and started striving toward that ultimate goal of “megalopolis”. One million citizens. This got you a map which was complete flatland (no rivers) and a Statue of Liberty with Mario’s head as a gift for your city. I never did make it that far, though I spent a good couple of years trying my damndest to do it.
Later, SimCity 2000 was released. A friend of mine with a better computer than what I had at the time (running the most incredible operating system I’d ever seen in Windows ’95) showed me this game and even let me play for a while.
I was amazed. “3D” graphics, elevated terrain, more detail, the prospect of seeing buildings actually vertically grow and dominate the landscape, and another level of detail in the need for water supplies. I couldn’t believe that something could be so detailed. I wound up getting a new computer before I was able to play the game, but I thought it was well worth the money. I spent years playing it, off and on, mostly between games. I also found it hard to manage the in-game budget with my youthful mind. I thought everything should be free and ended up needing to cheat to continue to make my city prosper.
Even later, SimCity 3000 hit the shelves. Once again, I had a new machine on which to run this masterpiece. It was much like its predecessor, but smoother and with the addition of waste management tools. Again, I was not able to grasp the concept of the budget, but I didn’t care. I wanted big buildings. I even made some of my own.
When SimCity 4 hit, I was aghast at the level of detail. Some people found the game daunting and too much of a micromanagement challenge. I loved every aspect, mostly because I was now able to grapple with financial concepts and could build a giant city without reducing myself to a money cheat (though I still used it when I got bored just so I could build some really cool shit). I still play SimCity 4 now, probably 5 years after the fact. It’s one of my all-time favorite games.
As I was a complete and total junkie to the Maxis universe (having played every SimDerivative available for PC at one time or another), I naturally kept my ear to the ground regarding what exactly the geniuses at this place were cooking up next.
It was probably about 4 years ago when I first caught wind of what would come to be known as Spore.
“Will Wright is working on something that will blow everyone’s mind,” said a paraphrased video game magazine, “SimEverything! You start life as a single cell and work up to a fully evolved space-faring life form!”
“Shit,” I said to the magazine, “Something like that is bound to be the greatest game ever! When will it be coming out? How long until we can play God?”
“Soon,” said the magazine, “See, it’s still in very early development now. They’re just getting the concept under wraps. We just wanted to tell you that they’re working on it and whenever it drops it’s going to be the absolute last fucking word in SimGaming.”
“Fucking right,” I said, “Can’t wait. It’ll probably be out next year around Christmas time. That will be awesome.”
Time dragged and I had forgotten that Spore was in development. Then, the paraphrased video game magazine found me again.
“Dude,” it said, “Will Wright says development hit some snags, but it’s still coming out soon!”
“Cool,” I said, slightly distracted, “Thing is, I’ve got this game called World of Warcraft, and I’ve been playing an awful lot of it. I don’t know if I can get excited about the next big obsession. Plus, I kinda drifted away from the whole SimThing when I started playing MMOs. There’s just so much to do here and I feel like I’ve exhausted my patience for SimCity 4.”
“Oh, man, but you don’t even fucking know how kick-ass this game is gonna be,” the magazine taunted, “And it’s coming so soon that if it were pregnant its water would have broke and it would be on its way to the hospital and calling the doctor to arrange an epidural. I’m telling you, this is it. This is the new way of gaming. Oh, and there’s going to be elements of SimCity involved, so you should probably go practice so you’re ready.”
“Well,” I said, “I’ve got an instance run coming up in an hour.”
“Come on, man,” the magazine said, “You know you’re jonsing for a fix. Just one little city. One little toss around with region play again. Come on, you know you want it.”
“You’re right,” I told the magazine, “Hearing all this talk has brought back my ideals of what this new gaming experience could be. I’ll poke around at SimCity again for a little while as I wait.”
“You won’t be waiting long,” said the magazine, “Trust in Will.”
Time dragged again. Then, finally, after years of absence, the paraphrased magazine found me again.
“Dude,” it said, smiling suggestively.
“Shit, what do you want,” I asked, too busy to turn away from the screen.
“Dude, it’s coming,” it said.
“Fuck off with that shit,” I told the magazine, “I’ve been waiting for years. You can’t fucking fool me with that shit. I’ve moved on.”
“What’s your problem?” the magazine asked.
“My problem,” I said, “Is that you’ve lied to me one too many times. I’ve moved on since those days. I don’t need whatever Will Wright has been cooking up for all this time. I don’t need to know about it, I don’t care to see it, I don’t want anything to do with it.”
“But,” the magazine said, its lip pouting.
“But nothing,” I interrupted, “I’ve got responsibilities now. I’ve got a Wii and a 360. I’ve got a game full of guildies. I’ve got GTA4 and Xbox Live. I’ve got FPS multiplayer on tap. I’ve got casual internet gaming. I’ve got Scrabble and Peggle and Pac-Man Championship Edition. I’ve got people practically begging me to level my WoW character. I’m sorry, but I just couldn’t spend forever waiting for Will to get over whatever was wrong with him. I can’t do it. I won’t do it. I’m stronger than I was back then.”
The magazine started to cry.
I put down my controller and heaved a sigh.
“Look, don’t cry,” I said to the magazine.
“Why shouldn’t I?” it asked, “I came here to tell you the good news and now you pretend like you don’t even want to know.”
“What good news?” I asked.
“No,” it said, indignant and sobbing, “You’re too busy now with your fancy seventh gen consoles and your MMO friends. You can wait for the Warcraft expansion, but when I come to tell you about something you’ve been waiting for for years, you act like you don’t even care.”
“That’s because Warcraft has been steady for me,” I said, “When Blizzard is going to release something, they just release it! They don’t make me wait four years!”
“You mean to tell me that Blizzard never lied to you?” said the magazine, its eyes narrowing, “You mean to tell me that Blizzard, fucking Blizzard, has never been late on one single release?”
“Well,” I started.
“Well, nothing,” said the magazine, “Blizzard is a cock tease. They run that test server with the new expansion and it’ll still probably be months before you’ll see it. I know you. You won’t go to the test server to play it before release. You’d say something like, ‘What’s the point when it’s not going to carry over anyway?’ and walk away from it.”
“Ok, ok,” I said, “I know Blizzard isn’t the perfect company, but at least they’re consistent. It’s not like I’ve been forgetting Maxis all together, but every time I pick up what they’ve been working on, it’s shit! I mean, really, can you tell me that Will Wright has an excuse for letting things like SimCity DS, SimCity Societies, and so many anal-retentive Sims 2 expansions loose when he knows what I’ve been waiting for?”
“I can,” said the magazine, looking at me over its shoulder, “Will wasn’t working on those games.”
“Bullshit,” I said, “Will is Mr. Sim. He would never let something he cultivated fall into other people’s hands.”
“You don’t think?” said the magazine, “I can tell you for sure that Will has been nothing but hard at work on Spore -- that’s what they’re calling it now -- for the last four years almost in their entirety. He’s not responsible for the miserable SimBrand games which have been coming out lately. He didn’t even have anything to do with The Sims 2. Trust me, you want to hear what I have to say about it.”
“Fine,” I said, collapsing back onto the couch, “Just tell me already.”
“Ok,” the magazine said, taking a deep breath and coming eye-to-eye with me, “It’s coming.”
“Oh please,” I said, “Don’t tell me you came all the way over here just to tell me that again.”
“Seriously,” it said, “Here’s the website. There’s a nifty little gadget they have there that’s supposed to be just a piece of the game. A creature creator where you can design your own unique thing using parts and mechanics that will be in the actual game! See? It’s coming! It’s almost here!”
“Well,” I said, “I’ll take it for what it is. This doesn’t mean Will and I are back on speaking terms. This creature creator could be the only thing we see of this game for the next decade for all I know.”
“Oh, it’s not,” said the magazine, “Will is saying the release will be sometime later this year, probably before the end of Q3!”
“Hmm,” I said, “I still don’t know.”
“Ok, the real thing is in beta,” said the magazine, “There, I said it. Here’s some pictures. There’s video leaking to YouTube. Just you watch! Will’s going to make a big presentation at E3! You’ll see! Trust me this time!”
“I’ll believe it when I see it,” I said.
“Ok, but seriously,” the magazine said, ‘You should totally get the creature creator to tide you over.”
“Whatever,” I said.
I didn’t want it to look like I was too interested. I wanted to play it cool so that Will would know I wasn’t going to hang on his every word like some of the other helpless nerdbots out there.
After the magazine left and I was safely out of sight, I went online and downloaded the creature creator.
After stretching my creative muscles for an hour or so, I said to myself, “Wow, if this is any indication, then this game will be everything Will said it would be and then some.”
“Told you so,” said the magazine, jumping out from around the corner as it quickly dropped trou to moon me and shot me the middle finger, “That will teach you to doubt.”
The thing is, the whole situation did teach me to doubt. And, once I had the full game in hand, I had to wonder: Is there such a game which can live up to nearly five years of hype? Is this really the SimMessiah, promised to lead all the SimFaithful to the SimPromisedLand, or is it just another pretender to the throne? Is it truly the end-all-be-all, full-on, much-storied, relying-heavily-on-hyphenated-descriptive-phrase, One Game to Rule Them All, or is it just a long-running labor of love of the Once and Future King of the simulation gaming industry?
Find out tomorrow when I post my full Spore review!
Same Bat-Time!
Same Bat-Channel!
Keep fighting the good fight.
---end transmission---