Review of Spore
TL;DR version: Don't buy it. If you want to give Maxis EA some money, pirate the game and then buy a Spore shirt from them.
I've known about this game for years and the way that it was originally talked about made it seem that yes, the way you build your character in the earlier stages will affect how it performs or behaves in the later stages. This is plain wrong. Rather, it's the choices you make that affect what traits or skills you get later on. For example you get different goodies for winning over all your enemy tribes by dancing and schmoozing them compared to out-right wiping them off the face of your tiny planet.
Then you get to the controls. I will NEVER, EVER understand why a computer game will not let you change the key configs. This alone is maddening. It's not so horrible in that they try to minimize the use of the keyboard and force you to use the mouse to a degree, but it will be for the people out there that like keyboard shortcuts (read: leet micro'ers and power users).
And the micro'ing does come into play as the third and fourth stage (tribal and civilization) a bit as it tends to play like a Duplo-blocks World of Warcraft crossed with a Duplo-blocks Civ4 (ie, they're both dumbed-down and noobed-out). It's a simple point-and-click type of game at this point that would be made much easier if we could assign our own keys to any damn function that Maxis had planned, but no, you're stuck using WASD (I'm an ESDF guy) and the carpal-tunnel-inducing mouse gestures instead.
But the space stage is even more intensive on your wrist. Not only that, but it's not a "sandbox" type of game like everyone thought it would be. If it was, enemy civilizations and pirates wouldn't be attacking my god-damned planets every 5 minutes thus keeping me tied down to a small circle of planets. It's fucking furiating when you try and terraform, scan organisms, or complete quests but three different alerts go off telling you that Glorbo is attacking planet Medvedum in the Logicen starsystem.
Just google up "spore space sucks" and see everyone bitching about the space stage. The problem isn't that it's too hard, the problem is that it's too hard in relation to the rest of the game. I'm sure that the hxc RTS players will have no problem managing and solving the problems in their universe. However, Spore is not geared toward that crowd based on the gameplay in previous stages. The other stages are done with relatively quickly and there aren't really many secrets to them. But then you get to the space stage and it's a fucking bitch? It's like being on a toll-road where you have the EZ-Pass system where you just zoom through four sets of toll booths in the designated lane at 70 MPH but before the very last one EVERYONE has to stop and pay $1.00 in nickels and dimes. Does not make any sense.
The final straw is the DRM. Supposedly it's in there and yet it's not blah blah blah. Either way, I'm in the far-left camp that believes there is no reason for DRM. Why? Take a look out there at the torrents and cracks for Spore. Know what DRM does? It only makes it harder for the legit customer to get something to work compared to the pirate who will pay nothing. In addition, it's almost like a root-kit.
So, I'm selling my copy of Spore for a you-name-it-price. Bartering is gladly accepted in various forms of sexual favors, porn, alcohol, various Japanese tchotchke, shot glasses, cuff links, used video games, and sterling silver.
I've known about this game for years and the way that it was originally talked about made it seem that yes, the way you build your character in the earlier stages will affect how it performs or behaves in the later stages. This is plain wrong. Rather, it's the choices you make that affect what traits or skills you get later on. For example you get different goodies for winning over all your enemy tribes by dancing and schmoozing them compared to out-right wiping them off the face of your tiny planet.
Then you get to the controls. I will NEVER, EVER understand why a computer game will not let you change the key configs. This alone is maddening. It's not so horrible in that they try to minimize the use of the keyboard and force you to use the mouse to a degree, but it will be for the people out there that like keyboard shortcuts (read: leet micro'ers and power users).
And the micro'ing does come into play as the third and fourth stage (tribal and civilization) a bit as it tends to play like a Duplo-blocks World of Warcraft crossed with a Duplo-blocks Civ4 (ie, they're both dumbed-down and noobed-out). It's a simple point-and-click type of game at this point that would be made much easier if we could assign our own keys to any damn function that Maxis had planned, but no, you're stuck using WASD (I'm an ESDF guy) and the carpal-tunnel-inducing mouse gestures instead.
But the space stage is even more intensive on your wrist. Not only that, but it's not a "sandbox" type of game like everyone thought it would be. If it was, enemy civilizations and pirates wouldn't be attacking my god-damned planets every 5 minutes thus keeping me tied down to a small circle of planets. It's fucking furiating when you try and terraform, scan organisms, or complete quests but three different alerts go off telling you that Glorbo is attacking planet Medvedum in the Logicen starsystem.
Just google up "spore space sucks" and see everyone bitching about the space stage. The problem isn't that it's too hard, the problem is that it's too hard in relation to the rest of the game. I'm sure that the hxc RTS players will have no problem managing and solving the problems in their universe. However, Spore is not geared toward that crowd based on the gameplay in previous stages. The other stages are done with relatively quickly and there aren't really many secrets to them. But then you get to the space stage and it's a fucking bitch? It's like being on a toll-road where you have the EZ-Pass system where you just zoom through four sets of toll booths in the designated lane at 70 MPH but before the very last one EVERYONE has to stop and pay $1.00 in nickels and dimes. Does not make any sense.
The final straw is the DRM. Supposedly it's in there and yet it's not blah blah blah. Either way, I'm in the far-left camp that believes there is no reason for DRM. Why? Take a look out there at the torrents and cracks for Spore. Know what DRM does? It only makes it harder for the legit customer to get something to work compared to the pirate who will pay nothing. In addition, it's almost like a root-kit.
So, I'm selling my copy of Spore for a you-name-it-price. Bartering is gladly accepted in various forms of sexual favors, porn, alcohol, various Japanese tchotchke, shot glasses, cuff links, used video games, and sterling silver.