In a medium of sequels EA's long awaited "Spore" distinguishes itself as a piece of software that escapes the gravitational pull of the games that came before it. It reaches players in a state that is both polished and flawed, so novel that it demands to be played.
The five-games-in-one simulation of cellular-to-interstellar life will look familiar to gamers in glimpses. But it feels, when controlled for a week, like nothing else.
You can read our previous coverage of "Spore" and the dozens of reviews that are sure to post on Thursday for a breakdown of the game's parts, a thorough explanation of its stages and controls, analysis of its graphics and sound.
I'd like to share what it felt like to play "Spore" for almost a week since I received the game from EA on Friday -- and show you in a few images how the creature I made evolved...
Each stage feels like a slick iteration of games we've already played.
"Spore" does play like "Pac-Man" and "b>flow" in its first stage and like a rudimentary single-player "World of Warcraft" in its second. It's a simple strategy game in its third stage, a remix of "Civilization" in its fourth and, in the last one, it is an expansive simulation of space exploration, space combat and the molding of planetary landscapes. Each stage feels like a slick iteration of games we've already played. But it wasn't until "Spore" that I felt I had played one game -- let alone five connected ones -- in which the character was neither the product of a game creator forced into my control or an action figure I was able to dress up and influence only through numerically defined personality traits. Instead, the lead character of "Spore" -- the tadpole/creature/tribe/city/spacefarer character -- felt, when the game was at its best, like a vessel of my decisions.
I'm sure the game's goal was to make me feel like I was in charge of a life, a species whose opportunities were the result of the choices I made. It was my decision to make my creature Sunstone's arms long that enabled him to grab the fruit from tall trees, which likely freed me from having to make Sunstone always bludgeon other species for food, in turn probably enabling a Sunstone species disposition that redeemed them from a path of brutality to, millions of years later, the slightly less vicious path of high-tech, trade-driven economic urban dominance.
The feedback loops between "Spore" and its players are an impressive tangle. No game before "Spore" has connected my mind, my choices, my instincts, my hands on the controls, the rules of the graphics and physics on my computer screen in such a complicated and rewarding way. I see myself not just in the game's visuals -- my personality quirks do affect the look of my character species, the shape of his car and the color of his house -- but also in the options manifested in the gameplay. He can be certain things in life because I thought a long time ago in his development that he'd look cool with long arms. How crazy is that?
The first four stages of the "Spore" are an eye blink.
The first four stages of the "Spore" are an eye blink. Cell Stage is tidy and just a few minutes long, a body-part-collecting prelude to the game's first showpiece, the already-released Creature Creator editing tool. The Creature Stage is a joyful novelty, an hour of discovering other creations made by strangers that were zapped, through the Internet, into your game. Tribe is another hour and the oddest stage, a simple strategy game that determines your species' primary means of dealing with outsiders, but with so few variations that it feels it will be a chore to play again. Civilization Stage probably should be a couple of hours, its goal for the player to expand control from one city full of their species to a full 10. But, at launch, the stage includes at least one design rut that can't be spun out of for several hours. So player beware: don't lose all your "economic" cities at the same time you lose all but one of your "economic" vehicles or you'll be very sorry. (It's complicated, but trust me.) Space Stage is the "Spore" main event, a dozen-plus-hours adventure orchestrated with a wide variety of galaxy-dominating techniques that include armed conquest, religious conversion, economic expansion, deep-space exploration, the shaping of planets and eco-systems and even mass-zoology. It's fun. If I wasn't probably another few hours from finishing the game I could say if it's worth it.
"Spore" is the rare game that doesn't go down like junk food. I've been obsessed with playing the game during non-work hours, but this is one of only a few games on which I've binged that doesn’t force its sound effects to reverberate in my ears after shutdown, that doesn't give a hangover. It feels healthy. That could be because I'm still in my first playthrough a relative hair's-width from the end of the final stage, still enjoying the process of molding the shape and fate of a lifeform that used to have neither its spaceship nor its four legs, two wings, its fedora and its rocket car on bicycle wheels. I still want to see this crazy species succeed.
"Spore" could use a patch. It needs a solution to Civilization design ruts and to the relentlessly aggressive artificial intelligence in even the normal difficulty of Space. The game's content-sharing options are strong but it offers surprisingly limited means for its users to communicate about their creations without leaving the game. And I'd like to know the fate of the species I create when they wind up in other games, an option I can't find in the current edition.
I think people over-emphasize the 'World of Warcraft' comparison.
The larger flaw, however, is not one that can be fixed. It's the nature of the game: "Spore" in uneven. This is the imperfection of a game made of five connected games, the inevitable imbalance that results from any one stage-game hinging on another that isn't as fun or doesn't produce the same feeling of consequence connecting player to character. Players will have favorites but will be forced, on first playthrough, to go through them all. The connected games are tone-shifters, for better and for worse, and some "Spore" players will likely be disappointed when the leaps the game makes from stage to stage don't meet their hopes of what the next step could be. Where, for example, is the stage that determines how a town of the player-created creatures, or even a family of them, relate to each other?
It is likely that many people will play only select parts of "Spore." I don't think I can do it. Once, this past week, when I grew weary of the overly-aggressive Space Stage artificial intelligence, I tried to re-start the stage from scratch. I was allowed to bring my space-ready creature and spaceship to a new galaxy, but they would start on a new planet with none of the cities from the Civilization Stage of my other game. I recoiled. I only wanted to play a "Spore" that has my creations in the places where I made them, in the history I defined. If I start over -- when I start over -- I'll start from scratch. I'll pursue a more peaceful route and see what happens, maybe try to tweak the parameters so that the planet I live on is full of creatures shaped like video game controllers or something.
I cannot tell if a gamer must like many kinds of games to like the multi-faceted "Spore." I do like a variety and I like this one.
I cannot tell if a re-play will be as fun, especially not when a lengthy playthrough of "Spore" makes a full session of Sid Meier's "Civilization" feel like a brief timewaster.
What I can tell is that this game feels so different to play than anything I've touched before. It relates to me as a player so distinctly that I recommend any gamer find a way to experience the sensation of playing through "Spore" for themselves. Try it. It's a worthwhile experiment.
"Spore" ships for Mac and PC on September 7.
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