I found that hours of persevering counted for squat against them and i found that even with money cheats (used them as a test) the grox would continue to be a javelin in my side with no “until I’m bigger” situation even hinting at presenting it’s self.

Investing so much time and effort in to something only to have a single decision ruin the game for you and not even make you fully aware the game is ruined until hours later is simply unforgivable. I do not want to learn a lesson from that mistake and take what i have learned with me on the next ten hour jaunt through the game. I do not want to re-do all that hard work so i can get back to that turning point (if I’m lucky enough to know where that is) and go in a different direction. I would have liked the ten hours i spent playing to have been more than an extended tutorial.

By all accounts you can either deal with the grox as enemies or ally with them and pretty much be thier lap dog with a bonus of the rest of the galaxy hating you for helping them.

This game has been confined to my “might play again if i’m really bored and it’s a game drought” pile.

If you are so curious that you are scouring forums and review sites for opinions of the games various facets i recommend you buy the standard edition game and see for your self. There is a devide on this game and you really wont know or even have a good idea of which side of that devide you will find yourself on until you’ve played it. If you don’t have the funds to buy this and have it be a waste of money i suggest you stick to what you know and buy “Run-of-the-mill-3:A mediocre adventure”

I love how Spore, through the evolution process, not just lets you get attached to your creature- it adds a roleplaying aspect to it. If, instead of thinking “how can I max the game out and play the best” or “what whacky thing can I do to my creature?”, but think “how can I make my creature evolve and grow?”… it gets really cool. I think of my game as a ’story’, and I start from the cell stage and make each new ‘model’ of creature look like an evolutionary step. I think up a little mini-story for why each step is taken and what the creature is like, or their culture is, at that point and how they got there. I particularly love my Chesni species- I made my first buildings and space ships for them. They are my first omnivores, and once they evolved to land they never evolved graspers or arms- rather, just legs- and they retained three pairs of eyes, though all but one pair slowly evolved in look and position. Their ‘middle’ eyes combined with the shape looked a lot like they evolved from an aquatic mamalian species like a whale- but they eventually evolved a dinosaur type structure with two heads… one at the top, one at the tail where the eyes were. Finally the bottom head, the herbivore one, moved to the top and the middle pair (in the middle body, near the one set of dino-legs) got the second mouth, a carnivorous hole of teeth with personality. Most of the time, the species unique trait was 360 degree vision- which I thought was rather neat. I even closed my eyes and imagined what it would be like to see all around me at the same time- and got a good impression of it. The Chesni, rather than developing hands, managed to use tools and eventually interface with technology using… their carnivorous mouths, in conjuction with their main herbivore mouths for assistance. THeir ‘keyboards’ basically were interfaces that let their toothy, well controlled lower mouth connect up and use their mobile teeth to interact far faster than ten digits ever could.

Okay, now for all my replies:

@Mike- You gave me a great idea for a youtube video, now if I just knew how to make movies to the point of documenting bits of gameplay outside the creature creator and add my voice narrative to it. “The galactic journey of the Celioflop: from tadpole to terror”. :P

@Commando – I think that there is no doubt the Creature stage is wanting of an expansion pack. There’s a ton of room for growth of all the earlier stages, really- I think their size now is a combination of, as the reviewer said, both intelligence in enabling a quick creation and smooth play experience… and also, feasibility. You’re paying for one game, which already took millions and years to make… it only makes sense that if they are going to flesh out the earlier stages into more full, stand-alone levels they’d do it in expansions. A company that gives away too much will die, that’s capitalism- or, in Spore-speak, that’s what happens to a cell that is all propulsion and no spines. :P

@Him – The ‘unlocking’ of toys allows for a better feeling of accomplishment, and for you to work up to something. I’ve played the game from start to ‘finish’ (reaching centre of galaxy, and highest rank, and unlocking most all the tools)… once you reach that point, it is easy to loose interest. The fact there are so many toys and you have to work to get each, makes it fun. If you started Space stage with access to all the ‘toys’, you’d play it… ohh, maybe two to six hours and get bored. Space Stage has kept me going for far more than six hours, and I’ve enjoyed the growth. I’m playing through again on “normal” mode, and even starting one game on “hard” mode, and finding that the higher difficulty makes it enjoyable (gosh, it took me at least an hour to beat Cell stage on hard mode. Gah, I died OVER and over and OVER again).

@Cubic- I just played fl0w after reading your post… while it indeed uses the same kind of style, the fact is they are both ‘cell’ type games and the cell stage of Spore is a TON more fun than fl0w. Fl0w gets boring fast, and is very bland looking. Plus, you can’t choose and select parts, and the cell stage only lasts a relatively short time- fl0w goes on and on, and its only point IS to go on and on (or so it seems). The cell stage in Spore actually goes somewhere: to setting the stage for your creature in the Creature stage. There is no such thing as a truly original idea- only an original IMPLEMENTATION of it! Spore implements these ideas, taking types and styles of games that already exist (and some of which are rather overdone), and mixes them up. Cell stage actually mixes some of fl0w, but also other elements of some other 2D mouse-oriented games I have played. I for one think I would enjoy playing through more levels of Stage 1 myself- it got old a lot slower than fl0w did. I also certainly wish more people would actually play through the end of Space stage before giving their ‘complete overview’ of how the game is. You don’t really know what Spore is about until you’ve played all the stages.

Hope you like my creatures- and feel free to drop me a line and let me know about your creatures and their ‘history’. :)

There’s going to be like 20 expansion packs with those add-ons.

Just wait for the H&M gatherer vest expansion pack, or the IKEA hut furnishing pack.

I wish that was a joke, but the Sims actually has those two brands if I recall my horrific trip to the computer store accurately.

Ah, I love the edit function – I can nod with bemusement at this:
“Millseconds until the Spore backlash: 442″

The whole concept of gaining “parts” by eating? finding? investigating piles of bones is also deeply flawed. Who thought that one up?

Was the creature stage mechanic designed to keep whacky US creationist types semi-happy? Why not have some element of random mutation and evolution beyond the players control. It would have been far more rewarding to attempt to breed characteristics into ones creatures… selecting and rewarding a creature with larger teeth for example rather than finding a pile of bones and buying a new mouth.

There’s also no real sense of a functioning eco-system… another wasted opportunity. Your creatures ALWAYS migrate for no apparent reason…. forcing you to trudge after them. Species never diverge. All creatures lay eggs? There appear to be no scavenger niche creatures… nor any species that remain in the sea… nor any mammals that return to the sea.

I realise I’m asking for a lot…. some kinda Sim Evolution… but that’s pretty much what we’ve been promised. Your creatures can either eat meat or fruit or both…. everything else is just eye candy. Increasing or decreasing the size and bulk of the creature seems to have no effect on game mechanics for example.

Actually, that was pretty much my experience with the fifth play-through as well, except eventually I managed to get back on top of things through sheer grind. After about six hours of fighting off one raid, then blitz-bombing a couple enemy worlds into the stone age, I finally beat the three alien empires that were picking on the mighty Thraddash into submission, two by genocide and one by submission followed by grooming them for an alliance. I also found out if I drop enough of my colonists into a tribal village, they can beat the tar out of the natives— harharhar!

Then I fortified my homeworld and the five worlds that bordered it as much as the game would allow, and set off to actually explore. Once you can just tell your colonies to slag off because you don’t need them anymore, the game is a lot less of a fricking hassle. The journey to get to this state was frankly an absolute chore that I never want to repeat, but I feel a certain pride for getting through it; I guess Spore’s space stage is kind of like a Korean MMO.

Though actually if you go out and make best-friends with everybody as soon as you meet them, the likelihood of constant planetary invasion is less likely. (Speaking of, I’m very disappointed I can’t put my own ships in my fleet; you get to do this in creature phase by having your own critters back you up, I don’t know why in space phase all of a sudden it requires you to make friends with others and have their crappy worthless ships as your wingmen)

Just in terms of the creation system, there is a ton of work that was done in the procedural creature creation system that many people probably don’t appreciate. However, I just don’t think that the other creation systems for buildings and the like are nearly as good.

In some ways, it’s a shame that the first 4 stages really do just lead the player through creation of the their creature and civilization since I think they could have been more, and frankly Will Wright did promise us more. Still, if the space stage is deep and satisfying, then this can be overlooked.

However, I just don’t think there really is quite enough gameplay in the space stage. At first, I felt like it was going to be the deep experience that I would hope for, but unfortunately it got repetitive way too quickly. And as others have rightly pointed out, the graphics for creatures and vehicles are so tiny it’s hard to appreciate them.

Spore really is something else and hopefully will set a precedent for other, better implementations of similar mechanics for games to follow. There just isn’t nearly enough depth to it. I still might fiddle with its creation systems, play a couple of the stages every so often, and try to get to the center of the galaxy (easier than it’s made out to be, apparently), but I’m really hoping expansion packs will add the necessary meat to the experience.

- make your tribal village celebrate (at least I’ve not found any effect on this) by selecting some villagers and right-clicking on the central fire.

- incidental details of city life in civ stage: go into the city planner (get rid of the coloured lines by switching to plant mode) and zoom right in on the main plaza. The citizens rotate through activities pursuant to the city type, the wheel of fortune and pay day ones are especially funny (economic city).

- Protect your cities from giant monster attacks in space mode, or just watch the population try to fight them off. Beware, giant creatures have range attacks and can take down space ships eventually.

Also, like Nick and PJ, I too found space stage to get easier after a few ship powerups, don’t neglect colony turrets and AOE repair kits keep your allies alive a lot longer.