A Review of Spore

So...Spore. The game many of us have been anticipating for years. Many are disappointed at how it turned out, throwing out a lot of criticism; some of it deserved, some of it not. This will by no means be a full rebuttal to everything I've read, but I have addressed a few issues. I didn't even limit it to worthless pricks! It turns out that's only about 80% of the internet. I'm sure everyone can guess what groups make up the rest. Anyway, before I get started:

DISCLAIMER: Yes, the DRM included by EA is a horrible idea and probably reduced their sales to a fraction of what they could have been. However, I am not going to address that. If you want to see people complain about the DRM, read the comments of any article featured on Digg that even mentions Spore. Even some that don't. Seriously.

1) The game is watered down so much it is boring.
This is a pretty broad claim, and encompasses a lot of the other criticisms that I address below. In short, I will say that the game is watered down from it's original design and is not quite what everyone was expecting. However, this does not automatically make it a bad game, for reasons I discuss.

2) The game has very little depth, and is basically a simplified combination of five games.
If you have not played Spore yet, the game is divided into five "stages"; cell stage, creature stage, tribal stage, civilization stage, and the space stage. Your creature starts in the cell stage and "evolves" up through the space stage.

The cell stage is a lot of fun, simply because you just swim around, eat stuff, and kill other cells. It's a good, solid, two dimensional life. This is the shortest stage, after which at some point you seem to discover that there are three dimensions and grow some type of legs. Or not, it's your choice. Once on land, you are in the creature stage, during which you eat, make friends or hunt other creatures, and find random creature parts from skeletons that just happen to be lying around and sparkle at you. This stage is pretty underrated. You can have a lot of fun trying to locate all the creature parts to build awesome creatures.

I actually agree with the criticism of the tribal stage. It is very simplistic compared to what it could be. When dealing with another tribe, you can destroy them, or give them food until they like you enough to let you perform a musical selection for them. After you've conquered or befriended all the tribes, you move to the civilization stage.

I've read a lot of criticism that this stage is an extremely watered down version of the classic Civilization games. There are quite a few similarities, but I think this stage is just to segway your creatures' expansion into space, since it is almost a direct subset of the space stage. While it is pretty easy, I still enjoy it.
I've seen a few complaints that this stage should be more like an RTS (real time stragety game). Remember that Spore is not supposed to be five games. It's supposed to contain five stages of development. Making this stage an RTS would take away from the other stages.

The space stage is what Spore is all about. As you advance through the space stage, you obtain tools to accomplish quite a bit, including the manipulation of lesser species, and planet destruction. With the exception of the cell stage (which is just cool), my guess is that the other stages act as tutorials to help you hit the ground running when you obtain these tools. They are fun in themselves, but the space stage is where the real depth of the game lies. You ally, declare war, and trade with other empires, expand your empire and terraform planets.

The creature stage lets you experience modifying a species, and how various species interact. The tribal stage introduces diplomacy in the game, and the civilization stage ultimately teaches you how to manage your home planet and colonies.

3) The DRM is horrible. Why would EA do this?
Seriously, did you even read the introduction? Exactly, now keep reading.

4) It's difficult to accomplish anything in the space stage because you keep getting called back to your home planet or a colony every few minutes to solve an ecodisaster or an invasion. Also, there is only one spaceship in the whole empire!
This does happen when you reach a certain point in the space stage (although the first official patch reduces the amount of disasters and attacks in easy and normal mode), however once you obtain the funding to properly outfit your colonies with defense turrets, it is no longer a problem. They may still call you back, but they survive fine with no help. With a sufficient number of colonies, you make more money every few minutes than you could possibly need.

The one spaceship issue is kind of annoying, but keeps the game from being too close to an RTS at this level and allows more of a sense of immersion. I know quite a few people disagree, but my guess is that was the intent. Also, you can travel to the center of the galaxy.

5) There is no actual evolution!
This is true, and I do not know if this was ever planned to be included. It would have been nice to have some simple evolution like that which occurs in the old SimLife game, but nothing is perfect. Spore already includes some amazing technological achievements, most notably the procedural generation of the planet environments and the galaxy, the various creators, and the texturing system used.

Creating creatures, buildings, and vehicles is awesome, and probably one of the best characteristics of the game. By the time you get to the space stage, your creature has various accessories from all the previous stages. Also, if they are anything like all the other races, they have an annoying voice and often jump around excitedly for no apparent reason.
Regardless, it is a lot of fun to see how other people interact with your race (see the Sporepedia) and to see a less evolved version of one of your creatures in another game.

6) The Grox are the biggest jerks ever.
All part of the game, my friend. I'm sure you know people with the same attitude.

7) I disagree, and you sir, are an idiot.
That could be. At least that sentence makes sense and everything is spelled right. Oh yeah, I worded it for you.

This is just my opinion, you do not have to agree with it. I play Spore a great deal and have a lot of fun with it. Games do not always have to be about constantly using strategy and tactics to destroy an enemy. That is always awesome, but Spore is a different type of game. Maybe not what everyone expected, but still great.

Now, if you live in the US, take a break from games, do something useful, and go watch the Vice Presidential debate (CNN, Youtube, etc).