So what's wrong with Spore?

[RJ 17]

Simple topic, really, the title pretty much says it all. I've been watching Game Grumps do a playthrough of Spore and I have to say it looks kinda fun. Been thinking about picking it up myself, but then I remembered a lot of people were saying it wasn't all that great. Sooooo what's the deal? What makes it a bad game? Or is it just another case of a good game that was over-hyped way too much and thus couldn't possibly live up to people's expectations of it?

 

[dasqoot]

Tl;dr from someone who bought it day one: it's very interesting and fun to play around with, but there's almost nothing to it.

Each phase just has one basic click interaction. Space has a few terraforming interactions you can do, but they are meaningless and there is no goal or reward besides just spray-painting planets different colors.

Making creatures is very fun, imho, and it's free with the Spore Creature Creator. Keep in mind, in the full game, you can only use the creature creator for the first 30 minutes to an hour of the game and then it's permanently locked off.

 

[Scarim Coral]

Well for one thing, those who knew the game beforehand before released did not lived to their expectation. There was a whole bunch of things in ideas or development but it never got put into the game like if your creature is blind, it will see differently in the game of the weight/ body structure of the creature will effect how it will walked.

Anyway, I played the game since day release and here is my beef on it-

Each stages were essentially minigames since there were no dept to it especially the Tribal and Civilization stages which were just cheap statergies minigame.

Sure the creature and the other creations (when you make building and spaceship etc) were fun but it does wear off quickly.

 

[StriderShinryu]

While I never played it myself, I remember it being largely a case of Molyneuxism (though in this case Molyneux wasn't even involved). During development of the game it was reported to be this amazingly detailed sim with life going from single celled organism to space travel and everything in between.. and then it actually came out.

 

[dasqoot]

While I never played it myself, I remember it being largely a case of Molyneuxism (though in this case Molyneux wasn't even involved). During development of the game it was reported to be this amazingly detailed sim with life going from single celled organism to space travel and everything in between.. and then it actually came out.

I was at the E3 event when they were really showing what people wanted in the game. There was a huge 20 foot wide wrap around LCD monitor showing the cut fish stage, and showing tactical combat in the RTS phases. All the official statements for the game were that each stage would be in depth and satisfying. They had constant dev updates and there was this amazing TED talk where Wright demoed the game, showing basically 100% of the finished game and some stuff not in the game, like extra life-stages and a much more robust creature editor where all stats, like speed, strength, health, would be inferred from the physical structure of the body, and promising much more. These were more than promises at this point, he even accidentally turns into a fish and then cuts and skips ahead, and you can see the stats and gaits updating on the fly with his creatures.

It's kind of mean to say we just fell for it, or it was just passed along or reported: The game was slashed into ribbons.

They didn't have these at the time for me to make the connection, but the gameplay is closer to a very good iOS clicker than a sim-anything. I think it would actually probably be a really good game, if it was just advertised as a simple mobile title.

 

[Elfgore]

From someone who also doesn't understand the hate, I learned that Spore is a game of false promises. The game was suppose to be massive with each stage being awesome, lengthy, and fun. We didn't get that. If you weren't around for the hype, chances are you won't mind the game.

 

[Briantb]

Its not a bad game but its really boring after a few hours. If you can find it for $10 go for it but otherwise its really not worth it.

 

[Gennadios]

It's just stupidly simple.

You have all these options to create your own life forms, and supposedly each evolution and limb you can add changes some kinds of stats, but it's really all meaningless. Aside from looks there's really no difference between any creature design. It's not a life simulation because there's no competition or selection.

Same for building and spaceship components in the later stages. It's ultimately a shallow game with alot of visual customizations and nothing gameplay wise.

 

[lacktheknack]

It's too fragmented and each "phase" is too separated from each other.

It would be one thing if the little creatures I see in the cell stage can be seen evolving alongside me all the way to at least civilization, but new species keep blasting out of nowhere, then often go nowhere when you reach the next phase. Plus, because each stage is so different from the last one, they couldn't make a constant thread of control or over-arching goal, so it plays like a series of minigames rather than a cohesive game.

Apparently, Space Age is pretty fun, but I get bored and frustrated before that I give up. I'm still glad I got it, because it was cheap and I enjoy the first two or three phases.

 

[MorganL4]

My problem was it kept crashing every time I'd get a species to the space part of the game, so I quit trying.

 

[RJ 17]

So basically they falsely advertised their game. They said we were stupid. They put our computers in actual danger. On top of all of this, they sold us an expansion that was the meat of the space stage's gameplay.

It was a fart directly in the face of everyone who was hyped.

I'd say that about sums up the other sentiments in this topic, glad I made it. After watching Game Grumps play it and putting more thought to what I saw compared with what I heard here, I can definitely see where everyone's complaints are coming from. It really is just an assortment of minigames. I could see myself having fun for a couple hours but likely regretting my purchase later.

 

[TristanBelmont]

So basically they falsely advertised their game. They said we were stupid. They put our computers in actual danger. On top of all of this, they sold us an expansion that was the meat of the space stage's gameplay.

It was a fart directly in the face of everyone who was hyped.

I'd say that about sums up the other sentiments in this topic, glad I made it. After watching Game Grumps play it and putting more thought to what I saw compared with what I heard here, I can definitely see where everyone's complaints are coming from. It really is just an assortment of minigames. I could see myself having fun for a couple hours but likely regretting my purchase later.

You've spared yourself your first Molyneux-ing.

 

[Belaam]

It was a fun little game for a few hours.

It was billed as SimLife turns into Warcraft turns into Civilization turns into Alpha Centauri. But each of those better.

I remember it as "that game where I made aliens that looked like toilets with fanged lids".

To say it didn't live up to the hype is a bit of an understatement.

 

[Denamic]

It's a game with multiple different stages that plays out as different genres. 3rd person action RPG, small scale RTS, large scale RTS, 4X space thing. The problem is that each stage is like babby's first of each respective genre. There's no depth to any of them. The space stage had so much potential, but it's 90% rinse and repeat. Sure, it can be fun playing god on random planets for no reason, but there's no consequence either way whatever you do, so it quickly grows old.

 

[nevarran]

It wasn't a bad game. The initial stages felt a little rushed and the space part was dragging. I remember someone telling me that you must arrive at the center of the galaxy, or something. But I never did that, it was way too long and repetitive process.
The creature creator was fun. And the RPG portion, albeit short, was fun as well.

Like the guys before me said, it was mostly about not delivering on the expectation and the promises.

 

[templar1138a]

Ignore the butt-hurting. It's a fun game and worth buying during a Steam sale. When I play, I use a space-age race that's terraforming every planet. It's simple, yes, but it's satisfying to see that small dot on the galactic map that is my empire's territory slowly get larger.

As for not delivering on promises, it looks pretty much like it did in the demonstrations I watched. I don't know what some of these other posters are talking about. After all, game devs ALWAYS exaggerate what their games will involve. Peter Molyneux left me pretty jaded in that regard.

 

[Batou667]

Never played it but it seems the game was overhyped and also forced to take a much more cartoony tone than first envisioned. Take a look at the oldest trailers for the game compared to what was eventually released: it went from "life simulator" to "super fun Moshi Monsters creation factory!". As I recall most of the effort went into the Creature Creation stage which was released as a standalone demo. Pretty sad, really, I hope somebody picks up the concept in the future and does something more meaningful with it.

 

[Drops a Sweet Katana]

If you can get the base game and its expansions for under a tenner, then it's not a bad romp. I mainly played it for the editors and that's where I spent most of my time. The actual game isn't all that interesting or rewarding really, and that's if you weren't caught up in the hype. For those who were, it was seen as a betrayal of the original game that was promised back in '05. It was pretty much fucked over by higher-ups wanting to appeal to everyone (despite the fact that the original would have).

 

[Littaly]

I played it on day one, but I hadn't really caught any hype until the last couple of weeks leading up to the release, so I never had any idea of what the game at one point was supposed to be like.

I didn't hate it, but it felt like it lacked substance and probably wasn't worth the $50 I paid for it. Mainly, as a lot of other people have stated, the tribal and civilization stages felt like watered down, underwhelming versions of other, much better games. I also remember the space stage feeling messy and broken, though to be fair, maybe I just didn't get it. The most fun part of the game by far is the first and second stage where you walk around trying to evolve your creature and play around with the creator, but that's just not enough to redeem the whole game.

It felt basically like of those mini game compilations where you get one pretty fun game and four ones that seem rushed and don't really work as intended.

Also, let's not forget: a big part of the reason Spore was received poorly at launch was because it was one of the first cases in which a game implemented really poorly thought out, way too restrictive DRM. Only being able to play the game while connected to the Internet and only being able to install it three times seems harsh even by today's standards, imagine how it came across back then...