[SlicerPT]

Cell stage:

Perfect, its kind of sad that its become my favorite segment of the game. The choices you make (jet versus cilia, spike versus electrical gland) make a remarkable difference on the way you play.

The "forced adaptation" of growing every X DNA makes you think about the changes you make since you can't just stay and grow five thousand spikes in every direction before you go tackle harder opponents.

Good balance, good pace, good fun.


Creature stage:

Good. There are several things that are flawed about the creature stage, but they aren't too bad. For one, your creature's growth is mostly dictated by stats. Eventually you will want to upgrade your sing/dance/bite/charge ability, so you will have to replace a part which gives a lower rank for one that gives a higher rank, even if that part was one that you thought it looked good on your creature.

Even worse, since stats don't stack, there's no visible benefit to having more than one "derma bark" other than the fact it looks better - but it still costs you DNA to add these "useless" parts. Easy fix - adding parts should only cost DNA if they actually add stats to the creature. That way you're free to experiment and create crazy creatures just like all the other creatures we see in the world "made by maxis", while staying within the limitations of gameplay.

All in all, creature is fun, just a few nagging things lingering about.


Tribe: Very bad.

This is by far the most linear portion of the game, even MORE linear than cell stage. Its strictly time limited since there's only five enemy tribes, and once allied or exterminated the phase is over. Its strategy limited since you only have X buildings available to you, and can only get more buildings by allying/exterminating.

So you build your X buildings (2 at the start of the game) send your creatures out to get food. Then you either wait to get attacked and counterattack to devastate them, or you give them a gift (which will stop an ongoing attack instantly) and then play didgeridoo hero to ally with them. Repeat four more times and this stage is over in less than an hour.

Gone is the social adaptation aspect of ribal, the aspect of your creatures "learning" their social skills based on how you play. Unless, of course, you count the three archetypes used in Civ stage.


Civ: Ok.

Civ isn't bad, but it is very lacking in depth. Learning how to make an optimal city takes all of five seconds - connect a factory to the town hall, connect as many houses to that factory, then connect enough entertainments to the houses to counterbalance the factories, done.

Similarly, your starting city basically shapes your strategy for the rest of the game. If you start off as religious, there's little point in branching off to military, you're better off converting new cities to religious to increase your population cap.

There's only three vehicle slots, and they all serve the same function, only in different landmasses. Use tanks exclusively until you get your starting continent (bar one ship to steal spice derricks). Then sell off all your tanks and buy an invincible armada of ships to conquer one city in the other continent. Then sell off your armada and buy another fleet of tanks to take over that continent. Ignore airplanes and get an achievement.

There's really no point in using combined arms or any kind of strategy. The consequence abilities COULD have added tactical depth, but really they recharge fairly quickly and you can use them against every town. The problem with civ stage is that its too simple, its over too quickly, and it lacks more of it.


Space stage: Holy gadzooks! What happened here? Was any playtesting done on this portion of the game?

Throughout most of spore, gameplay as been one of discovery, and survival through mobility and cunning. On the space stage there is no mobility and there is no discovery, there's only wave after wave of pirates, enemy factions and grox to defend against, eco disasters tugging you to every corner of the galaxy. You will not have any time for discovery in the chaos of constant intergalactic warfare.

In typical 4X game fashion, enemy factions will expand terribly quickly, and after an hour of gameplay all choice planets will be taken. The galaxy is suddenly no longer a great unknown, but a superhighway of people out to get you.

Then it gets worse. As you start settling for the second rate planets around the galaxy, you find that you have to manually build every single colony, including buildings and turrets. Then you find that the turrets are largely useless, and that truely the only defense your interstellar civilization has is -you-. Then you get a pirate attack that consists of three planetary assault ships each with five orbiting fighters, and you will find yourself having to run back to another planet to recharge and repair three or four times before they are killed.

And then you find out that to get the next weapon upgrade you need to build fifty colony buildings. ONE BY ONE.

This stage is by far the most broken. I can deal with civ stage being meh and tribe stage being little more than a "pick what consequence ability you want" minigame. Space stage is where its at, and where you need to put the most work into if you want to keep people around for the inevitable expansions or downloadable content.



Overall I like spore. But I know I'm going to get bored soon since I'm unable to progress in the space stage, and having started over five games already (to hunt for achievements), my favorite stages will soon become dull and uninteresting as well.