Spore out on Friday!

inotocracy said:
So its safe to say the hype machine worked, everyone bought. Doesn't sound like all it was going to be, but this game had some serious expectations to hit, didn't expect it to be so lack luster though.
Click to expand...

i have a feeling game companies will discover the fact that hype is only good for driving piracy these days.
 
Honestly I lost interest in this game after watching them play it at E3 and it just looked boring so I didn't really fall into any of the hype. By the way people are talking about it I probably won't either.
 
Honestly I dont think the game is that bad. I didnt know about the hype for this game and saw it in the paper today and it looked like a fun game. Sure im not gonna play it days on end but here and there its fun.
 
most people bitching are the one who pirated it ...

i love spore , its fun enough to pay 40$ for it
 
Well, that was less than stellar.

Having raised and pushed the Twinkie race into space, it felt like I hit so huge of a block that it doesn't feel worth it to go on. Yeah, I modeled my race after a stale Twinkie tossed into space.

After blazing through as a complete social herbivore, I kept thinking I was missing out on something. There is no way it could be this easy. But it was.

Step 1: Eat plankton.
Step 2: Dance for other amphibians.
Step 3: Play a horn for other primates.
Step 4: Hook a horn to a car and play it for other civilations.
Step 5: Fly into space and bend over because you are about to get it in the rear.

Nothing better than saving up for enough crud to terraform a planet into usefulness than to have an armada of pirates and weird aliens from a huge distance away come and wipe out your colony and put their own there. Frustrating and unrewarding.

I can't believe that none of the other beings have any real personality to them, but I guess when you are trying to allow anything to be possible, you couldn't really specify something to make a race interesting.
 
setscrew said:
How would a users compare this to Civilization 4?
Click to expand...

Civ 4 is one of those amazing games where the user can get into as much depth as he/she wants to. Perfecting the game requires knowledge of all of Civ 4's facets, but the average n00bie can simply automate most of the tasks and still have a good time without feeling like they are playing 'easy-mode'. Depending on game settings, a civ4 match can be a quick medieval-era bloodbath or as long of a domination game as you want. The same basic game can be played in enough different play-styles that there's considerable replay-value.

Spore doesn't seem to have nearly as much variety or replay value, despite being able to customize your creature.
 
It seems as those who like the depth of the CIV games won't like the shallowness of Spore.

I'm curious to see about the SIMS players who like Spore. If you really liked SIMS and played it for a long time, how are you liking Spore?
 
Picked the galactic edition yesterday, manage to make it on to land before going MEH.
It plays like a game for kids. Run around, eat plankton, lay eggs. Crawl up to land, run around, dance at other creatures, eat fruit, pick up bones.

WTF?

I'm gonna give it another try when I get home from work today but if it doesn't work out its eBay time.
 
mellojoe said:
It seems as those who like the depth of the CIV games won't like the shallowness of Spore.

I'm curious to see about the SIMS players who like Spore. If you really liked SIMS and played it for a long time, how are you liking Spore?
Click to expand...

Loved Civ, sorta-kinda-liked sims, feeling really blah about Spore after trying it for a couple of hours.
 
do you guys think a 6 year-old boy can play this game? i wonder if my nephew could get the hang of it.
 
I like this game, but it is rather simplistic. Did anybody expect anything better? Will's previous games were all directed at specific people. People who like Sim City might not like The Sims (personally, I liked Sim Earth and Sim Ants the most).

This game is like a super simplified hybrid of Flow, Sims and Master of Orion - basic premise of them all is present, but with none of the stategy and complexity.

Depending on the modability of the game, I see some good potential for the more hardcore games. Other than that, I wouldn't recommend most people spend $50+ on it.

To Gabe

I suspect the younger players will really enjoy the creature/building/vehicle creator. The Cell and Creature stage will be easy enough for your nephew, but further on will probably be too difficult, especialyl the Space stage.
 
Sim Ants was awesome.
Sim Tower was my standout favorite, though.

Spore did do one good thing though, it got me wanting to play Sim City 2000 again.
:)
 
omg simtower.
must. resist. urge.
simtower wasn't a will wright game though...
 
Sim Tower was fun until you get the dreaded "You've reached the maximum number of elevators", etc, messages.
 
inotocracy said:
So its safe to say the hype machine worked, everyone bought. Doesn't sound like all it was going to be, but this game had some serious expectations to hit, didn't expect it to be so lack luster though.
Click to expand...

The game that was presented to us through videos early on would have deserved the hype, they just failed to deliver that game, it was a brilliant idea turned into a really mediocre game by removing all of the clever technology.

The videos I saw made it look like there was more going on under the hood, like they'd built this great AI inside a proceedural game and you could do all these actions and mix them together for example: eating + walking = drag

None of that is there in the game, you can get some really varied creatures with the editor but it still feels restrictive, theres not much you can do with the spine, you cant make it split into 2 or anything like that. Because the parts have functional value it means all level 1 creatuers look fairly similar, so do all level 5 creatures etc.
 
Maybe it's good I didn't buy this game. I was looking forward to this game for years now. It seems to be a total disappointment. The hype machine is an asshole - and he's the king right now...shame.
 
elleana said:
Picked the galactic edition yesterday, manage to make it on to land before going MEH.
It plays like a game for kids. Run around, eat plankton, lay eggs. Crawl up to land, run around, dance at other creatures, eat fruit, pick up bones.

WTF?

I'm gonna give it another try when I get home from work today but if it doesn't work out its eBay time.
Click to expand...

Funny you say that, I haven't seen my kids have this much fun with a game for a while... they don't have much of an attention span when it comes to pc games. It's fun enough, but I haven't really done much in space. It was much more fun just running around with my pack eating everyone.
 
Gabe3 said:
do you guys think a 6 year-old boy can play this game? i wonder if my nephew could get the hang of it.
Click to expand...

He will probably like the first 10 minutes of it, and be able to handle the first land stage then be at a complete loss. It requires reading skills once you get on land.

I recommend just downloading the creature creator and be done with it.
 
holy shit i forgot about simtower!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

so good!


and simant...everything else was very "meh" to me.
 
I played it all day yesterday after picking it up at Gamestop. To be honest, I'm kinda having fun. I didn't go into it expecting CIV4. I don't think the devs ever compared it to Civ4.

Its a fun game. Not insanely deep or anything. But fun. I'm at the civ stage now, just getting started. I can honestly say I had a good time with each stage. After playing 3-4 creatures some might get boring, but its cool that they let you start over at any stage you've already completed. So if you've already beaten 'Tribal' stage, your next game can start at the 'Tribal' stage, and you don't have to play Cell or Creature if you don't want.

So yea, this thread totally lowered my expectations, but when I got into it, I think I was happier for it. I no longer expected something incredible. Is it incredible? No. Its not awful either. Its good.
 
Problem is: The first two stages are actually the only stages that are fun.....

In my opinion, the profound problem with this game is that it's too hard for a 4 year old to play and too shallow and boring for anyone over 14 years old to enjoy. They created a game that simply doesn't have any long lasting appeal to ANY age group.
 
Direwolf20 said:
I dunno, I'm 28 and I'm having fun :)
Click to expand...

yeah but i think it'll stop as soon as you reach space stage and the replayability is really only there for the 2 first stages...you'll see. Been there, done that. Of course, you might have fun with the whole game but i dare to say that the majority of players out there will be utterly disappointed with the game overall.
 
Yea, I'm interested in space. Looking forward to it a bit. We'll see. Perhaps its just a much slower more complicated pace than the rest of the game, and its just a bit of culture shock to players getting into it.

I'm also interested in trying out the Herbivores. I'm at meatarian right now,
 
I'm liking the game. It's pretty simple yet awfully charming. Gameplay wise, someone else here said it best "jack of all trades, but a master of none." I've only gotten to the tribal stage, but everything's been pretty fun up until that point. Can't wait to start customizing my own vehicles, buildings, and space craft.

My family and friends kept criticizing my creature creations.. for some reason, they felt that anything I made had to resemble something in real life. I tried to make Pokemon, but somehow ended up making a minotaur scorpion thing. :)

Final evolution.. http://www.spore.com/sporepedia#qry=sast-500029114211
 
The 3D water stage (after bacterial) is gone entirely.
Also corpse dragging is gone.
And as far as I noticed, my creatures don't attack "based on where I put the weapons".
 
The creature animations in the demo look much more fluid than the actual game.
It seems like they INDIVIDUALLY animated each creature in that demo to look more impressive, when the actual anims in the real game aren't that detailed.

[edit]
I see they made a Care Bear.
Good luck designing something like that in SCC.

Also he keeps saying he's going to "skip ahead" which feels like he's skipping evolution parts of the game. But really he's just jumping to the next level, exactly what the player sees in the full game. It almost seems like there's actual CONTENT he is skipping, but really there isn't.

And a lot of this stuff is fun to look at in a demo (the creatures playing the drums and dancing @ tribal stage) but really when you play the game, it's totally useless. Maybe you see it and think "Wow if you can play the drums and dance, that's TOTALLY useless, there must be a ton of amazing useful things you can do" but he's actually showing you 99% of the content of Spore, the useless and the useful aspects. Maybe the fact that there is something as pointless as drumming and dancing makes you think there's even MORE productive things to do (Spoiler: There isn't.)
 
Just played through the bacteria-phase, it was pretty cool, but I still have my doubts I'll finish it.
 
I'm getting this game once the modders start providing useful mods
 
Aw damn, you're right. I remember seeing parts of a 3d water stage. Wonder why they took that out?

On the bright side, I tried to limit my exposure to the previews so I'd be pleasantly surprised. :D
 
Pezzy said:
(personally, I liked Sim Earth and Sim Ants the most).
Click to expand...

I wouldn't mind seeing a Sim Earth sequel. Imagine the depth they could put into that game with the horsepower today's computers have.
 
ashmelev75 said:
Everything that was good in GDC demo was gutted out. All you get in the final version of the game is an empty, but colorfull shell, of a very neat original idea.
Click to expand...

That's a shame. I guess they had to make room for the DRM they had to put in. :D

Seriously though, the game was delayed several times and they released it with less content? I also remember Wright saying they were trying to do a game that had more stuff with less people (and I think he was referring to the early days of Spore). Weird how it turned out the way it did.
 
phobic said:
That's a shame. I guess they had to make room for the DRM they had to put in. :D

Seriously though, the game was delayed several times and they released it with less content? I also remember Wright saying they were trying to do a game that had more stuff with less people (and I think he was referring to the early days of Spore). Weird how it turned out the way it did.
Click to expand...

What DRM are you referring to in this game?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top