so far after spending some 30 hours with the game I still want to play it. remember mate- im not reviewing the game here – RPS can do it by themselves. im just telling you that i had a blast playing Spore. but, as we all know, de gustibus….

dont worry about being flooded with agressive enemies – first of all – it seems that you actually have to work to be hated (in.ex. when i used planet buster everybody in the vicinity started to hate me – it felt like being Russia doin the Georgia dance :D ). second of all – generally neighbours are usually either friendly or neutral, and even if they do feel a lil hate towards our race they dont set off to a war just after we meet, and greet.

on the other hand – I WAS attacked, and I HAD to defend my colonies and even my homeworld.

and yes – that takes serious ammounts of micromanagement since you only have one UFO. tho i must admit that fighting, as simplified ( :D:D) as it is, still IS fun.

cheerio

ps. one more thing – supercivilization (called the Groks in polish ver – I think it will be same in eng) lives around the core, and generally does not appear until later in the game (space pahse that is). civ that attacked me was actually my OLDER civ from another savegame, that crashed when i achieved space stage. i remind you howevrer that amounts of DL content after creature phase is still very limited – after all not many copies were distributed amogst reviewers up to this date.

First off, great review, I found it very helpful.

One bit that really concerned me was your experience when you hit space. IIRC you encountered a neighbouring supercivilisation spanning around 40,000 light years or somesuch who promptly went to war with you and ground you into the dust.

That sounds a bit, well, not fun. It’s all very realistic I suppose, very gritty in a Thomas M Disch The Trees sort of way. But having fought my way up, I’d be a tad dismayed to hit space and then just have no realistic shot at expanding and surviving.

It made me think it might be worth waiting until a patch adjusts the aggression levels of the AI or the odds of encountering such a hostile supercivilisation so early.

Any thoughts your end?

first of all, after completing it i still feel the need to play more. i finished it with warlike civilization, and there still are 2 other types – religious and merchant, whose both have their own bonuses. so just out of curiosity i want to do it. u finish the game by getting to the centre of the galaxy, and thats not an easy task. it took me a good week just to pimp my ride enough, so it could get past enenmy civ that surrounds the core. and there is lot to do in space phase anyway, coz u get to deal with LOTS of other civilisations. for example – i had a quarrel with agresive civ on a higher tech level, and i had tu use diplomacy to push one of my allys to attack enemies. otherwise enemy would wipe us all out. so as far as diplomacy is simple, its also an useful tool to help you develop your empire.

second of all – its true that game is kinda shallow, comparing to expectations we all had. actually shallow is not a good word – simplified would be way better.

each element is like a diffrent minigame be it creature factory (kind of a puzzle game) city building (another lil puzzle :) ) or acting as a creature (simplified sims social game or hack’n’slash depending on what u prefer to do with others). they are all ingeniously designed and really fun. even terraforming (one of the most visually stunning elements of the game) is in fact a simple minigame – u have to balance temperature and pressure on the planet, and then stabilize it with plants and animals.

whole spore is constructed of small brilliant ideas like that. ofcourse some will hate it and call it a game for kiddies, but i assure you that there is enough hardcore – when you set off with couple of nukes to wipe enemy cities, and the planet buster just to punish them for not being polite enough when they surrendered, you will know what im talking about.

one last thing – in my oppinion civilization phase is the most boring, and weakest of all, but still its not all that bad – tad tedious, but i was on the rush to get the spaceship so i kinda treated it like a nececery evil :D so dont get upset just yet – that trailer is not the best representation of game’s content

ps. it takes one day to get to space phase if u hurry, and it took me more than a week to get to the centre (i sneaked past ‘em, at the end). that kinda shows how the balancing is set. and im sure most casuals will never get past creature phase).

ps2. sorry for my english, i know sometimes its quirky- u know “itsnothinglikestarcraft” obliges.

ps3. if u have any precise questions shoot away

ps. a whole series of minigames doesn’t make for a deep game, especially not if the minigames are bland as hell, then again after the hype I’ll probably play Spore either way.

For a game as hyped as Spore, people really know very little of what you actually do in the game.