Spore, I love it.

Sep.15, 2008 in Cool, Gaming, Video

Recently, I’ve been playing a lot of Will Wright’s magnum opus, Spore.

This is a game that immediately grabbed hold of my interest the first time I saw a video demonstration of it a long time ago. I won’t go into details about the game here, there is too much to explain, so you would be best off checking the Wikipedia page on Spore for all of the information you need.

I bought the “Galactic Edition” which came with a National Geographic DVD documentary entitled “how to build a better being” (which I have still yet to watch), a poster, the game (obviously), a making of DVD, and a delicious hard back A5 sized art book which I absolutely adore!

The game, from the start, totally immersed me, something which very few games have done for a long time. I think the last to really keep me hooked was probably Half Life 2: Episode 2.

After installing and booting, I managed to play for a full 9 or 10 hour stretch without realising the time, the game is just THAT gripping. Although after a couple of solid day’s play (slotting around my work schedule) I am now feeling a little, not so much bored, just burned out perhaps?

By far, the best stages are the cell through to civilisation stages. Creating a creature from the ground up is a fantastic experience and thoroughly enjoyable, especially if you try to keep a theme throughout and create a sort of evolutionary line, without making grand sweeping changes. When you go back to look over it again at the end, you can see the changes to the creature and how its grown from a cell into a fully fledged creature, and it is a wonderful experience.

Admittedly, the first play through to the space stage I just added all the parts I needed to give me the best possible edge over every other creature, Min-Maxing my stats and just powering through, however, each subsequent play has seen me take a more relaxed approach, playing the game a lot more organically and just going with the flow.

One of the more annoying and frustrating, and therefore un-enjoyable stages (personally speaking) is the space stage. I enjoy terraforming and creating planets, colonising, trading, all of that stuff. But when your home planets are constantly being terrorised by aggressive civilisations, pirates, or ecological viruses, it becomes incredibly aggravating. Most of the time spent in the space stage is fending off would-be attackers and keeping everyone happy, it’s all a bit too intense for my liking.

All in all however, the game is fantastic, beautifully crafted, wonderfully designed, and additions like the Sporepedia give a sense of community and grandeur.