MENA Gamer - Where Game Begins

How will you create the universe?

Spore [PC/DS/Mobile Devices]                            

“I came, I Spore, I conquered!”...smje

Have you even wondered what it would be like if you could start from the very beginning? I mean the very beginning!

Well now you will find out.

Introducing Spore, from the creators of The Sims, EA Games and Maxis bring you a gaming experience like no other. To put it simply, Spore allows you to have complete freedom to create your creatures from the tiniest little organism to a space faring race and everything in-between.

With spore you can do it all, evolve your species, establish tribes and build civilisations. Then once you have mastered that, master the stars!
From trading spice to waging war, finding your place in the universe is not only fun but addictive.

Spore not only does all that but also allows you to share content, upload content and be connected to one of the fastest online communities around. There is the creature creator which you can use to make creatures from scratch using tools which you can use to form, shape, add/remove parts and colour as you wish. This tool is also used to create all the things you will use in the world. Such as land transport, sea and air. Then once you have finished with that go create yourself a spaceship to travel around in.

In this review I will try and cover as many features and game play styles as I can. I could go on quite a bit but I will try and refrain from going off topic.

But I’m getting ahead of myself; let’s take it back to the start.
Starting Spore you are presented with the galaxy. Not ours but a galaxy, this will be your playground for creating anything you can imagine. The interface is clean unobtrusive and unique, very similar to that of the Sims. In the midst of the galaxy there are numerous solar systems to choose from. Selecting one is a matter of choice, each looks different but will set you off on the right path. From here you will be able to select a name and a new creature.

Let’s begin!

You start the game in the microscopic form, arriving on a planet with the help of an asteroid.

Starting off you will have the choice to be a carnivore (meat eater) or herbivore (plant eater. Although it is easier to progress as either an herbivore or carnivore, being an omnivore has more rewards. Your way to survive is to eat and not be eaten! But your goal is simple, evolve. You must do this by achieving DNA points; these are gained by eating plants or other cells.

As your progress bar fills you will grow larger and the cells that used to threaten are now small cells that will try and flee. But be careful, the larger you get the more deadly the cells become. Once you have enough DNA points you can spend them on new parts and making your creature better. This is done by using the creature creator, a very easy and unique tool. With this tool you can shape, lengthen or shorten and add new parts by scaling and positioning them. Once you have finished making your creature as deadly or as cute as you want, it’s time to give it a unique paint job. Using premade colour schemes or just going for it yourself you can make the creature your own. There is no shortage of what you can do with this creator.

Once you have chosen on your parts and colour scheme you can start to continue as your newly created species. This stage is one of the richest in colour and sound. Each creature makes a unique sound. After you have progressed enough in this stage of evolution you evolve in to a land faring creature. This is where the second stage of spore kicks in.

Going from 2D to a now rich 3D world you are able to control and view your creation from 360 degrees. Your goal here is to establish your skills socially whether that be peacefully by engaging in dance, song or just to charm another species or just to go out and fight with whatever takes your fancy.
Either way you need to like with the cell stage, earn DNA points to reach the next stage. Before I tell you the details of this, I will tell you of what is in store for this stage.

You need to continue to evolve but in order to do this you need to gain parts and ultimately gain intelligence. The environment in which you play is different from world to world and varies greatly in the different types of creatures which inhabit it. You will find everything from small creatures which will cower at the sign of an attack to those who are very aggressive even if you are nearby. Finding a place here and trying to get along with some and annihilating others can be difficult but is worth the rewards.

     
After a while you will gain intelligence, thus you will outgrow your home. Your nest will migrate to a new location and you must follow. Be careful on the way as some species will undoubtedly be cautious as you are entering their space. A new larger nest is established and you must not only try to gain more parts and intelligence but be careful of larger more deadly creatures that threaten your world. Along the way you may see some strange objects, such as crashed space ships and unknown artefacts; these may prove to be useful in the later stages of the game.

Again like with the cell stage this is a rich and colourful world with many new sights and sounds to explore. There are unique landscapes on each new world and a new colour palette. Each species has its own style and its own temperament, which makes for

Don’t forget though that your creature needs to eat! This is done by either hunting down then eating other animals or by eating fruit from plants and trees. Then once you have earned enough DNA points to progress your species further, the time comes when you must do what you must, mate. This is simple, by calling your mate you produce an offspring, this then gives you a chance to see the creature creator in this new environment.
This stage of the creator is similar to that of the cell, but has more options and has more functionality. Again with the options to add limbs, change the shape of the creature, you can also change the size, height and length. It allows you to change the size, angle and individual amount of each appendage. As you gain more parts, more DNA and more intelligence you will gain more tools and parts to work from.

The combat system is simple; approach a creature or species then instead of using the social tools which you use to befriend a creature, use one of your weapons, such as claws, bite and poison. These all depend what you chose to add to your creature in the editor. Using this interface is simple, it’s a simple point and click system, you can use your keyboard if you want but it is harder to target creatures.

Once you have established enough DNA points and have made your creature more intelligent, you will again evolve which will take you to the tribal stage. This stage is the last where you will control your creature as an individual and also the last time you will have to alter its appearance, so don’t progress unless you are sure! One of the ways you can track your creature’s progress is the timeline. This is another handy tool which looks at what your species has achieved and done over the millennia.

Now the game takes a completely different angle, as you enter the Tribal stage. Now the game turns into a kind of RTS and you control a number of your creatures. This stage allows you to build in your camp, such as weapon stores, music and fishing. You now have the option to send each creature to any one of the structures and make them into a musician, spearman or fisherman. Like with the creature stage you can befriend another species which is striving to survive or destroy them.
Once you have mastered the art of collecting food from either other creatures, by sending in some hunters armed with spears, or collected fruit from those unsuspecting tree. To progress in this stage you must either conquer or ally with other tribes.
 

Let’s focus on making an ally. Once you have enough food build a hut containing either a horn or didgeridoo. Then you need to make one or more of your tribe one of these players. This is done by selecting one or more of your tribe and your tribal leader. Once you have done this approach another tribe, select another creature and start to play music. Be careful it takes practice and timing is everything. Some tribes may be hard to impress, so you must either increase the number of so-called musicians or keep timing. But this stage not only allows you to make friends you can also make enemies. Not only caused by your actions but some tribes will ultimately try and kill yours whether you want them to or not.

You also at this stage have the chance to alter what clothing/attire your species wears, add funny parts, shape and again colour them to suit and make your tribe stand out amongst the ever growing population.

As you progress in this stage more and more species will fight for dominance and ultimately strive for the next stage, civilization. It’s up to you how you get there, whether that is peacefully or by more persuasive ways; the most important thing is try to survive.

The game now takes another twist, now instead of controlling individual you now control a civilization. There are no longer any threats from any other lesser home species, but some of the other nations might not be that friendly. When you first start on this stage you have the chance to create the look of your civilization, from the buildings to the vehicles, land, sea and air based. You can literally spend hours just doing this. Altering sizes, shapes and colours of all these can be not only fun but self satisfying.

This is one of the most fun stages to play. Not that dissimilar to some RTS games where you have to control units, to either make friends with the locals again but also to conquer or just to annihilate the opposition. You can now not only see the local area to you but this stage opens up the field of view to encompass the whole planet. You can see all the land masses, cities and creatures which dwell here.

Collecting spice, flirting with war and peace are the main areas of your game play. You need to manage your civilization as well as trying to manage others.

Defence is also sometimes the best offence. You can defend your cities by building turrets and getting a large military base. Be careful though too many can cause your citizens to be unhappy.
 

The final and I think the most rewarding stage, the space stage. Now you have advanced far enough not only to master your planet, but you have the chance to master the stars.

After spending time like with the other stages, building and customizing your ship to travel between the stars you can start to expand your empire.

Interaction with other races on worlds close or distant to yours is your goal. You can create trade routes, acquiring new tools and accessories to use on your travels.

Unlike the other stages this one allows you to not only customize creatures, objects or even cities, but entire planets. In your travels you will see a lot of new species, stories and individual societies. Some may seem strange or particular but all have a unique attitude when it comes to making war and peace.
 

You can approach planets, capture or destroy their populace, build colonies, terra-form planets with the vast amount of tools at your disposal. All the tools are acquired by visiting planets and investigating unknown objects.

Making allies is harder than making enemies however. If you really want to be known as an invading species that’s easy, enter a planet, attack a few cities and there you go. But the real challenge comes when you want to use resources, trade and sell/buy items. Some species only take a bit of talking or persuading to get them to see sense, others want a bit more. Doing missions to distant planets, investigating or even abducting species is needed to please some.

In this stage you may find yourself rescuing a civilization from attack or even eco-disaster. There is always something to keep you busy, and as a result you may find yourself spending some time on this one, too much sometimes (keep an eye on the time).

The good:
1.    Intuitive controls, very simple to use, simple design and lot’s of options.
2.    Unique game-play like no other. The game uses standard game genres but with a twist, allowing for seamless transition from an almost platform game to a simulation game (like the Sims) to RTS to real-time space strategy. The game has it all.
3.    Clean simple interface, again similar to that of the Sims, very easy to use and fits nicely with the style of the game.
4.    Rich sound, from the matting calls of your earliest creations to the languages of some distant race; the music and background noise makes you feel immersed in the game.
5.    Rich colour and colour options. The game has a wide variety of colours, not only on your creatures but also on planets, objects and just the general scenery.
6.    Lots of customisability. With the creator tool you can not only create the creature you wanted to make you can style it, create a world around it and make it unique.
7.    Different game-play styles available, from cell, creature, tribal, civilization to space. Each stage is essentially its own game.
8.    Sharing content instantly with the Sporepedia, this built in game function allows for instance sharing and downloading of content without having to leave the game.
9.    The overall design, this game looks and feels like no other, it has new features and a new way of generating content like your creatures, which means you don’t have to have a degree to make anything. This makes the game more fun and much more functional.


The bad:
1.    Unless you attempt the game on hard, the game can seem to fly by. Certain stages are too short in my opinion whereas some are too long such as the space stage.
2.    Sometimes you can make a mistake in the game but you only have the option to go back to a previous save, the game does not auto-save or a save history.

The ugly:
1.    I can’t say anything in this game is ugly; yes there are some things I would like to see different such as the scale of creatures, cities and ships compared to the planets. But I suppose that is in the games character.



Summary:
Spore is like no other game, it incorporates many of the traditional styles into one. Neatly packaged into a clean, user friendly environment to play, Spore takes you, as the player to places you have never been. The game is not only visually but it is also audibly stunning, with bright vibrant colours, lots of unique tools to create everything the way you want, this game is for people who enjoy spending time creating, living and interacting with other creations.


By Scott Elliott