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So it's monday over here, a week since I got Spore (through the unthinking of my local Game outlet here 
).
What is the "7-day cooling off period"? It is the amount of time that other people should ignore new creators. Because just like God, they will spend 6-days creating life, creatures, evolving them and eventually letting them go on their way, and on the 7th day they will also sit back, look at it, and go "woops"!
I bought the Galactic Edition for $130 AUD. Very pricey! But after reading what was supposed to be included with it I felt it was justified. Hmmpf. The "Making of" DVD is pure marketing garbage that could be played as a TV ad to boost sales. There is as much about making Spore, as I have let on about the making of Civ4 Colonisation! And the poster? Yeah, my kid likes it, BUT HE'S TWO! He likes scribble on the back of a phone bill! But the thing that really irates me, the "so called manual" is passed off as the "exclusive 100-page Prima Strategy Guide". There is no strategy in it, it's the actual manual that SHOULD'VE come with the game! The only two redeeming factors about the Galactic Edition is the really cool box it comes in, and the extra "Art of Spore" booklet.
I should've bought the standard edition for $90.
But then we come to the game. There was a MASSIVE build up of hype surrounding Spore. The most that has ever been done for any computer game in history. It's been over 4 years in development. There have been countless articles, promotions, demos, speeches and discussions on the game that has been billed as "create Life, the Universe and Everything"! Sadly, the game falls short of Douglas Adams. 42? No, I propose 38.
Don't get me wrong, the game is brilliant. Brilliant in concept, brilliant in the ability of user's to create content to share with the World, brilliant in it's simplistic and easy-to-pickup recreation of evolution (Darwin would be horrified though!), and brilliant in its marketing. Where it falls short is in execution. Each phase is fantastic in their own ways. But sadly there are some major execution problems in the very core of the game.
For instance, let's take the one thing that creates the entire interative atmosphere in the game: the AI. The AI is very simplistic. It has two modes only: happy/charm/trade, or angry/fight/destroy. There's no in between. There is no creature that allies with one, and destroys the next.
Another issue I have is the difficulty settings. There is no difficulty level that I can see. The only difference is that the harder you get, the more hitpoints the other creatures have, and the majority of creatures become angry/fight/destroy AI's. This pushes you into the carni/combat/aggressive sphere of the game causing the entire opposite sphere to be forgotten. Because a friendly/charming/trading creature will have 100 times more problems surviving at Hard difficulty. I had hoped that the AI would actually get BETTER at higher difficulties.
There's also the decision to make ability ratings NOT additive after Cell phase. Let me explain. In Cell phase, if you keep adding swimmers, you get faster. But in Creature+ phases, the more speed adding bits you have, you don't get faster. Your ability rating is at the highest level of all the bits you have. So if you have a speed 1 bit, and speed 3 bit, your speed is NOT 4 but 3, which is the highest individual rating of all your bits. I feel that these abilities should've been additive like they are in Cell phase. This would help to promote more complex creatures, and create some actual strategy in your decisions since the complexity gauge only allows a certain number of bits and you want all the bits you can add. It also opens up infinite combinations of creatures. But now, there is simply no incentive to add speed modifying bits as only one counts.
But don't let me stop you getting the game. Like evolution there is PLENTY of things that are great (read any of the major game site reviews for them). So I'm not going to repeat it here. I just want to point out that it may NOT be what you expect. I'm sure God sat back on the 7th day and said to himself, "is that it?"
There's a LOT of surprises, and a lot of fun in this game, but does it live up to the hype?
So my recommendation is to buy the standard game (not the GE) and if you're humming-and-harring about it, then wait till the first price drops in a couple of months. And as for God? Well that's not for me to push one way or the other, and whether or not evolution is evidence of God, or evidence of an interstellar "accident", I hope the evidence presented by an actual player of Spore will help you to make up your mind.
).What is the "7-day cooling off period"? It is the amount of time that other people should ignore new creators. Because just like God, they will spend 6-days creating life, creatures, evolving them and eventually letting them go on their way, and on the 7th day they will also sit back, look at it, and go "woops"!
I bought the Galactic Edition for $130 AUD. Very pricey! But after reading what was supposed to be included with it I felt it was justified. Hmmpf. The "Making of" DVD is pure marketing garbage that could be played as a TV ad to boost sales. There is as much about making Spore, as I have let on about the making of Civ4 Colonisation! And the poster? Yeah, my kid likes it, BUT HE'S TWO! He likes scribble on the back of a phone bill! But the thing that really irates me, the "so called manual" is passed off as the "exclusive 100-page Prima Strategy Guide". There is no strategy in it, it's the actual manual that SHOULD'VE come with the game! The only two redeeming factors about the Galactic Edition is the really cool box it comes in, and the extra "Art of Spore" booklet.
I should've bought the standard edition for $90.
But then we come to the game. There was a MASSIVE build up of hype surrounding Spore. The most that has ever been done for any computer game in history. It's been over 4 years in development. There have been countless articles, promotions, demos, speeches and discussions on the game that has been billed as "create Life, the Universe and Everything"! Sadly, the game falls short of Douglas Adams. 42? No, I propose 38.
Don't get me wrong, the game is brilliant. Brilliant in concept, brilliant in the ability of user's to create content to share with the World, brilliant in it's simplistic and easy-to-pickup recreation of evolution (Darwin would be horrified though!), and brilliant in its marketing. Where it falls short is in execution. Each phase is fantastic in their own ways. But sadly there are some major execution problems in the very core of the game.
For instance, let's take the one thing that creates the entire interative atmosphere in the game: the AI. The AI is very simplistic. It has two modes only: happy/charm/trade, or angry/fight/destroy. There's no in between. There is no creature that allies with one, and destroys the next.
Another issue I have is the difficulty settings. There is no difficulty level that I can see. The only difference is that the harder you get, the more hitpoints the other creatures have, and the majority of creatures become angry/fight/destroy AI's. This pushes you into the carni/combat/aggressive sphere of the game causing the entire opposite sphere to be forgotten. Because a friendly/charming/trading creature will have 100 times more problems surviving at Hard difficulty. I had hoped that the AI would actually get BETTER at higher difficulties.
There's also the decision to make ability ratings NOT additive after Cell phase. Let me explain. In Cell phase, if you keep adding swimmers, you get faster. But in Creature+ phases, the more speed adding bits you have, you don't get faster. Your ability rating is at the highest level of all the bits you have. So if you have a speed 1 bit, and speed 3 bit, your speed is NOT 4 but 3, which is the highest individual rating of all your bits. I feel that these abilities should've been additive like they are in Cell phase. This would help to promote more complex creatures, and create some actual strategy in your decisions since the complexity gauge only allows a certain number of bits and you want all the bits you can add. It also opens up infinite combinations of creatures. But now, there is simply no incentive to add speed modifying bits as only one counts.
But don't let me stop you getting the game. Like evolution there is PLENTY of things that are great (read any of the major game site reviews for them). So I'm not going to repeat it here. I just want to point out that it may NOT be what you expect. I'm sure God sat back on the 7th day and said to himself, "is that it?"
There's a LOT of surprises, and a lot of fun in this game, but does it live up to the hype?
So my recommendation is to buy the standard game (not the GE) and if you're humming-and-harring about it, then wait till the first price drops in a couple of months. And as for God? Well that's not for me to push one way or the other, and whether or not evolution is evidence of God, or evidence of an interstellar "accident", I hope the evidence presented by an actual player of Spore will help you to make up your mind.
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