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. :D