Spore creature creating EXTRAVEGANZA (Page 3 of 4)

Man, go back and watch those old Spore videos. If you want to know why the game was really overhyped. It isn't because of too much media exposure, it is because they made an amazing prototype and then removed all the stuff that made it cool. Just search "GDC Spore 05" to see the old vids. It was a completely different design back then. I wonder why the abandoned a lot of the stuff that made the game cool. Like procedurally generating your guys animations and attributes.

Before if you wanted a sleek fast creature you had to design a sleek fast creature, now you just have to attach the Speed 5 feet to him.
Before if you wanted to advance to the tribal stage you had to advance your creature to the point that he was highly fit for the environment so that you could save enough points to evolve your better brain, now you just complete stupid little goals that are incredibly easy.
If you wanted to advance to the city stage you had to become powerful enough that you could focus money on upgrading your town hall instead of spending it on spears and bows, now you just have to complete stupid little goals that are incredibly easy.
Before you got to the space stage by becoming powerful enough that you could focus your points on developing a UFO instead of spending money on upgrading your tanks and planes, now you just complete stupid little goals that are incredibly easy.
Before to get to the fish and marine mammal stage you had to evolve your cell to be larger and more complex, now you don't have any aquatic stage at all. You go from being a tiny cell to being a huge land animal.

Last edited by KingofNewYork (2008-09-08 04:16)

With this one post I went from really wanting Spore for these past 3 years to not caring if it ever existed at all.

That is just lame on so many levels.

Honestly, I think KoNY is being too hard on the game.

Did it fall short of its ambitions? Probably. Hell, definitely.

Is it still an enjoyable experience, and worth the $50? I'd say very much yes.

Dany did a good job of going over this but I just want to make sure it's not lost.

Phases

• Cell: You start out as a cell with a mouth (herbivore or carnivore) and two flagella. Eating things give you DNA points, which you can use at any time (by calling for a mate) to evolve your cell. Possible additions include more mouths, more flagella (for speed), cute doodads. As you get bigger and faster, you can take out more complicated creatures and acquire their parts for your repetoire. Almost immediately you kill a spiny blob and gain access to the spike, which helps your defenses/offenses (though it can be hard to position yourself to use it appropriately).

  Based on how many things you've eaten (DNA acquired) you will 'bump up' to the next level in the tide pool. Things that were previously raping you are suddenly manageable, and you can kill them and steal their parts. This goes on for a while until you've maxed out your progress bar. Once your progress bar is maxed out, you can click a button to go to the next stage, or keep playing with your cell indefinitely.

  When you choose to evolve, you're thrown into the editor again, only now it's in 3D. You are given access to a few more parts (though you still have the cell parts available, for now, flagella etc no longer do anything and are solely decorative), as well as the ability to shape your spine and add legs. When you finish, you migrate to land.

• Creature: You're a pretty shitty creature. You have a nest, you have dietary habits that are now locked into place (by swapping out mouths in the cell phase you could switch between herbivore, carnivore, etc), and you are granted special abilities based on your behavior. This is a trend that continues with each phase - your behavior in the phase dictates new abilities available for the rest of the game. Being a "carnivore", you get unique carnivore abilities for each phase. If you finish the creature phase as a "predator", you get predator abilities for each phase. Each phase types you as one of 3 possible traits when you finish.

  This phase basically consists of interacting with other creatures by either raping them or befriending them. When you've extincted/allied with enough nests, you get the option to go to the next phase. DNA is acquired by interacting with the nests, and parts are acquired by looting fossils on the ground or allying with/eating the appropriate animals. As before, you can "evolve" and spend your DNA on new parts whenever you want by mating. It's a cute little RPG type thing. Combat basically involves spamming cooldowns and alliances are a game of Simon Says. Your parts dictate how well you do at either of them.

• Tribe: You've discovered fire and tools. It's now a dumbed down RTS. You can place buildings and train new babies (up to a cap) for your tribe. You have a chieftain (hero of sorts) and the rest are just tribe members. You can no longer customize your genetics, but you can put on clothing for stats. You can outfit your tribalists as warriors, musicians, etc of various types by having them interact with the buildings. Your options here are to either conquer opposing tribes with force, or become their friends with music (more Simon Says). The only resource is meat, which you get by stealing from other tribes or farming animals. Phase ends (when you want it to, as usual) when all the tribes are either under your sway or destroyed.

• Civilization: This places, like, well, a dumbed down Civ game. You start with one city, and can place three different kinds of buildings (house, factory, entertainment). Their layout in the city determines the city's income and happiness. You can increase income by claiming spice nodes in the area. You interact with other city's to form alliances or declare war, and the phase ends (as usual) when you're dominant. You can either destroy a city to claim it, use religion, or buy them out. The more city's you have, the more you can do (water vehicles, aircraft, more abilities... if you're the violent type at this point, 6 cities unlocks ICBMs, which cost a hell of a lot of money but literally end the phase in victory for you). More outfit options are available, and you can customize buildings, outfits, or vehicles at will.

• Space: This is the meat of the game it seems (the rest only take a few hours if you're looking to rush through them for the first time), and seems surprisingly deep. I'm not very far into it. You construct a spacecraft and use that to interact with other planets/races/whathaveyou. Lots of upgrades available, lots to do, so on, so forth. Fun enough for me!

To me it sounds like you are on your first play through. Every review I have read has been after the reviewer only played it once. It is the same review I would have written if I had only played it once. Start a new creature, and now that you know how the game plays you will see how poor it really is. Since it only takes 3 or 4 hours to beat the game, reviewers should have made a few creatures before making their reviews.

If you want to pay $50 for 3-4 hours of enjoyment, go for it. The first play through you will be so engrossed by the editors that you won't see the flaws in the game.

Then after you have done that watch the old GDC 05 videos so that you can really hate the game they released.

I don't really have any interest in playing through the beginning phases again yet, though. I have plenty to do in the space phase. :S

I may be mistaken, but I think if you have two different items that confer overlapping bonuses, they will stack.

Space stage is loads of fun

pretty sure I'm interested enough to download it and that's about it.

They stack in cell stage, it would seem.

In case anyone as wondering, playing a giant blue inchworm is fucking hard.

You can do naga, they just won't move as fast as they would with legs.

BTW: http://antispore.com/

Last edited by UrQuan (2008-09-09 20:00)

War3Pub's EVIL twatish mini-marsh martian
Mobo is good, he is without fault, surrender your will, into his cult!
Mobo Cult Drone #8, Offical Alien

Or he wants some page hits

War3Pub's EVIL twatish mini-marsh martian
Mobo is good, he is without fault, surrender your will, into his cult!
Mobo Cult Drone #8, Offical Alien