Spore, Released Sep 7th

[Hercanic]

On Sunday, my girlfriend came home with Spore. For herself. Even though she knows I've been dying to play it. Instead, she played her copy of Spore, taunting me, and I couldn't help but watch with a dreamy expression on my face. Yes, I actually spent an entire day watching someone else play a game. =oP Although, I did design her Dragon people for her. In any case, that game is bad, horrible, awfully awesome, and it distracted me from getting anything done.

Who else has been unfortunate enough to be exposed to its addictive potential? What are your thoughts? Have pictures of the things you've created? Feel free to share and discuss.

[imgwh 640x994]http://www.vgcats.com/fan/guestcomic/co ... e_Will.jpg[/imgwh]

[Lavarinth]

Spore is too short on everything except Space. Your rebuttal?

[wibod]

Spore is too short on everything except Space. Your rebuttal?

Spore needed less tribal phase and more nuking the shit out of everyone. It's very enjoyable.

[Lavarinth]

Tribal took me literally, maybe ten minutes. Mass axe killed everyone. It was pathetic. Creature stage was the second longest to me. Civilization stage took me maybe 20 minutes, freakin' Spore stage was longer than that.

[Anonymous]

The game was rushed and it really shows. All of the development time went into the engine, which impressive, even if the graphics are fairly dated by today's standards, but the actual gameplay is very rough. The AI is very, very bad, especially prominent in Civilization age which is just painful in general.

An extra year or two in development would have really helped it.

Overall from start to 'finish' about eight hours in one sitting, very short, and I spent my time fucking around and being annoyed by game-breaking bugs.

Tribal stage was virtually a fleeting moment compared to the agony of civilization.

I showed some of the stuff I created in XXE 4.2. Go watch that video and see what Spore is really about.

In creature stage in my second run through I spent my time gathering everything and farming everybody after I diplomasized an insane neutral dude to get the necessary evolution points to create the Animus.

[imgwh 640x400]http://img244.imageshack.us/img244/6307 ... fulek0.png[/imgwh]

It might be necessary to use Spore to create some Armageddon creatures to use as references in case I find some hapless fool willing to actually model and skin for me.

[AA7Dragoon]

^ What is your Spore account, Doack?  I want your creations in my game.

[IskatuMesk]

I didn't buy it, so I don't have an account. (I'm not going to justify EA's DRM)

[Lavarinth]

Yeah, me too, when I actually buy it!
[me=Lavarinth]dashes his eyes.[/me]

[Whiplash!]

I have played it a few times, I'm on the civilization phase or something where it almost plays like an RTS. I just hate how the units are so slowwww reminds me of CnC3 and why I didn't play past the first level.

[Meta]

I've been reading everywhere that the game is very shallow and allows you to customize mostly, if not only, the asthetics of the creature. One of my friends who bought it last week said that he was rarely so disappointed by a game, especially one as hyped as Spore. He bought it, played it for 3 or 4 days and uninstalled it soon thereafter. According to him, the specii are barely different from each other (other than their looks, obviously), the game is too easy, there is barely anything regarding environments, niches, interspecii relations and such.

Of course, the dude's a hardcore gamer and most of his complaints are that the game just doesn't have much depth.

So, is it worth a try or will I waste my time? 

[Lavarinth]

It's great for an average person. It's alright for gamer. It's lame for a hardcore gamer, except Space since that's can get overbearing at times.

[IskatuMesk]

Honestly? Even without DRM I wouldn't spend money on it.

[Magic]

Don't forget that it's meant to be comparable to The Sims (Like it or not, it's the best selling PC title of all time) and that simulation games are meant to be "a mile wide and a foot deep". If you don't like it, fair enough, to each their own, but understanding what I just said is important in the context of the games industry

I haven't played it yet though and hope to soon.

[Lavarinth]

That's like saying StarCraft II will only be attracting to Koreans because it's a "professional gaming RTS" so it's not for casual gamers who just want to enjoy the story.

[IskatuMesk]

Which is doubly ironic lav because the koreans don't like SC2 and how it's being dumbed down.