Spore!

[Newby]

Apologies in advance to anybody who feels that pirating PC games is killing the PC game market.

The game that's been hyped since I was in middle school is finally out Friday. It got leaked to the internet, and being a college student with a very slim budget I acquired said game to give it a test drive to see if it was worth buying come Friday.

Final call: if you liked games like The Sims or Simcity, buy it. The online features may be worth it to you (more on that later). Otherwise, don't waste your money. I was really hoping there was some form of multiplayer so I could interact with friends in later stages, but I don't believe there is, and other reviews telling me 'players: 1' is also a pretty good indicator that I'll be bored stiff after a week of this game.

Pros: creating your own everything! Creatures, buildings, clothes, there really isn't much you can't design. And if you don't feel like designing, the game ships with a thousand pre-designed buildings/creatures/etc, and the online feature will allow other users to share their creations and stream their creatures and such, so you can interact with them too. If only it was interacting with the other PLAYERS and not their CREATIONS....

Cons: it suffers from what other single player games suffer from: a limited lifespan. Once you beat the game, you've pretty much seen it all. After stage 2 you lose the connection you had with your creature, and it gets worse and worse until the final stage, where you start taking over the galaxy. But it's nothing special, really. The game's strength relies on putting these individual pieces together in a package, and while the package is nice, it's made up of those individual pieces: they're simplified games. The creature stage (Stage 2) plays like a really simple WoW (clicking and mashing buttons to kill other creatures), stage 3 is like a simplified Age of Empires RTS, stage 4 plays like a simplified Simcity-meets-Starcraft type game, and stage 5 I haven't played far enough into, but it feels like it won't be too special. NO MULTIPLAYER IS A KILLER.

All in all, it was fun while the initial excitement was strong, but I'm not sure I'd ever come back and re-visit this game as long as it remained strictly single player. What makes me sad is I got a bunch of friends hyped to play it multiplayer and now I get to let them down too!

But, for your enjoyment, I present to you my military land vehicle named after blaze, and my Newbus creature:

[d&q]

I approve this message!

[Lead]

I've been excited about this game as well but the one downside I look at is that they have no real multi-player interactions. There reasoning behind this is that they don't want to make taking over other planets intrusive to other players. BLASPHEMY.

[warz]

yea, boo. i played and got to the 2nd phase, and its like... boring :\

[iago]

Heh, funny, I haven't really paid any attention to it, but it actually sounds like the kind of game I'd like. I love single player games, as well as the games you compare it to!

How intense is it, graphics/CPU-wise?

[warz]

eh, the graphics are alright. they're just average. the "interface" is kinda weak on phase 2, if you ask me. it looks half-assed. that's as far as i got, though. i've got 2GB of RAM, 2.20 GHz 64-bit dual core processor, and a 512MB video card (was top of the line, though), and it runs just fine.

it still has a hint of the sims in there, if you ask me. you'll notice what i mean when you play it, and click the mating call button, or whatever.

I don't know. I heard about this game probably four years ago, or something, and have always kept it in the back of my mind, but it just didn't interest me right off the bat like I kind of expect now days. It might be a good "hit and run" game, if you will. Play it for like 20 minutes at once, and then wait to play it maybe a week later, or so.

edit: i should give it credit though... the customization in this game is insane. you can literally modify any part of your creature. i never got to buildings, or whatever, but ive heard theyre the same. it's cool. i can honestly say that the odds of any two creatures made by people looking the same are very very very low.

[leet_muffin]

Gah, this game is sick as hell.

[Newby]

How intense is it, graphics/CPU-wise?

My 4 year old computer (3.4 GHz P4, ATi Radeon X800 XT, 1024MB RAM on Vista) can run it smoothly at medium.

[Blaze]

yea, boo. i played and got to the 2nd phase, and its like... boring :\

Haha, same here.

[iago]

Gah, this game is sick as hell.

Is that good or bad?

[Blaze]

Gah, this game is sick as hell.

Is that good or bad?

He means good, but actually, the game isn't fun. 

[warz]

glad we all caught this before paying $60 for it! lol @ maxis

[Blaze]

I gave up completely on the city stage.  :\

[Camel]

Awesome, pirating it now

[AntiVirus]

I've been playing it for a little under a week now.  Good stuff.

[BigAznDaddy]

At first i didnt think this game would be all that good but when i started to play it the game got better and better. i am now addicted

[Blaze]

Try playing it on Hard.  Hard is easy till stage 4.. then you mise well bang sticks together instead of playing, it won't matter.

[Mythix]

Yes, I can finally complete the underwater sea aquatic army that me and Sidoh have discussed for years. Mwahhahaauha

[Lead]

Yes, I can finally complete the underwater sea aquatic army that me and Sidoh have discussed for years. Mwahhahaauha

can they have laser beams attached to their (friggin') heads?

[Camel]

NSFW --> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AvmA93D7II

It looks as if there's hope for Newby after all.

[Newby]

LOL. That was truly awesome.

[BigAznDaddy]

NSFW --> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AvmA93D7II

It looks as if there's hope for Newby after all.

ROFL.

[Krazed]

How much like SimCity? That's the only game I miss on computers.

[Blaze]

How much like SimCity? That's the only game I miss on computers.

Not enough to be fun.

[Kaleeko]

I think the game's actually a lot of fun. I've been following it for a while, and have to say I was a little disappointed, since I was expecting something a bit more fluid and "do whatever you want", since I wanted a diversion from MMORPG's telling me what to do for quests all the time, but I'm totally digging the Space Age. Terraforming planets ftw. I just wish it wasn't such a bitch to get the money to do it right now. (And I was dumb and picked really bad planets to colonize. )

[Camel]

Look for pink/purple spice when picking a planet to terraform; don't bother colonizing to get anything else, it just isn't worth the time spent. You can always buy other spices cheap.

The T rating of the planet doesn't matter; once you get a high enough energy pack and the 4 terraforming tools, you can completely terraform a planet in one shot.

If you get bored with trade, there's a money cheat - I won't post it here, but it's easy to find via google.

[Kaleeko]

Look for pink/purple spice when picking a planet to terraform; don't bother colonizing to get anything else, it just isn't worth the time spent. You can always buy other spices cheap.

The T rating of the planet doesn't matter; once you get a high enough energy pack and the 4 terraforming tools, you can completely terraform a planet in one shot.

If you get bored with trade, there's a money cheat - I won't post it here, but it's easy to find via google.

I used to be an avid cheater, but I'm trying to get out of the habit of it now -- but later on when I'm "rerolling" a new race persay, I'll look 'em up. ^^

I initially was going after planets with green/blue, whatever color it is spice since it sells really well on my homeworld, but I'll try to find some pink and purple. The only problem is that most of the galaxy near my HW is controlled by evil people. SUCK. XD

The only problem I've REALLY been having with terraforming is I get the terrascore a fraction away from T1, and then it stops.. And I don't have the money to buy any more supplies, so it resets... And then when I finally got it, the game crashed and I didn't save! It's actually crashed several times now after I finally accomplished something. I swear, it's a conspiracy.

[Sidoh]

[Kaleeko]

Hahaha! That's awesome. I want Dune Kitty.

I swear, once I found out that the trading resource in Spore was Spice, I lol'd, and was severely tempted to rename my homeplanet to Arrakis. 

[Sidoh]

Hehe, that is pretty funny.

[leet_muffin]

I actually had this image in my head every time I did a spice trade or anything related to spice in Spore.

[Sidoh]

I actually had this image in my head every time I did a spice trade or anything related to spice in Spore.

lol.

[Camel]

I used to be an avid cheater, but I'm trying to get out of the habit of it now -- but later on when I'm "rerolling" a new race persay, I'll look 'em up. ^^

You can use cheats to reroll your specialty in every sub-game.

I initially was going after planets with green/blue, whatever color it is spice since it sells really well on my homeworld, but I'll try to find some pink and purple. The only problem is that most of the galaxy near my HW is controlled by evil people. SUCK. XD

If you're having problems close to home, you can branch out and find a less hostile area, and then just focus your efforts there. Don't worry about losing planets - although I'm not sure if anything bad happens if you lose your home planet. You probably lose free regen, but that wont matter when you got bank.

The only problem I've REALLY been having with terraforming is I get the terrascore a fraction away from T1, and then it stops.. And I don't have the money to buy any more supplies, so it resets... And then when I finally got it, the game crashed and I didn't save! It's actually crashed several times now after I finally accomplished something. I swear, it's a conspiracy.

You know, you can save mid game...

Concentrate on getting badges for now; explore, interact with new species, etc - but stay away from the center of the galaxy for now, 'cause they'll destroy you. When you rank up enough, you'll be able to get the terraforming tools.

For now, you can make money buy buying spices low and selling high; you don't have to terraform to get them. Of course, you'll get them much faster if you control the planet, cause you can deck out its production.

[edit] Try to find an area where there are several planets with valuable spices - don't bother with red/yellow, but anything else should be worth picking up if it's cheap enough. In my game, the area of the galaxy where the legs begin to come together is pretty sparse as far as foreign species are concerned - though I'm not sure if that's by design.

[Kaleeko]

I know I can save mid-game, but the game seemed to crash at the most inconvenient times. 

Anyways, things are going fine and dandy, now. Figured out the easiest way to bounce around as a trader and make the most profit, and am now getting a lot closer to the galaxy center. I keep getting raided by enemies, but I figured out I don't always have to help out my allies if they're getting attacked, too. They're dipshits if they can't defend themselves... I'm just too "oh noes must save the day!!" for my own good.

Game's fun, but I'll probably start going back and doing previous stages again for the fun of it, or cheat so I can mess around with more planetary tools.

[Camel]

Make sure you stay away from the big bad guys in the center of the galaxy until you are powerful enough to fight them. Once you enter their territory, they will start attacking your colonies, so try to get a few disposables between your homeworld and the center.

[wires]

http://kotaku.com/5055113/holy-crap-spore-created-starcraft-amazes-us

[topaz~]

There needs to be a creationist version with the first twenty five levels beaten for you.

[Sidoh]

There needs to be a creationist version with the first twenty five levels beaten for you.

HAHAHAHA.

[Warrior]

There needs to be a creationist version with the first twenty five levels beaten for you.

ROFL.

[leet_muffin]

i lol'd