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[Zemat]

Yes, but back then the creatures had procedural movement, and their shape realistically affected their movement.  Remember the way Hangdog walked?  Or the bird whose head swayed when he walked?  Now all of them have the same walking animation, half the time it has to speed the movement of the legs up to ridiculous speeds.

Ah, I remember that. The creature that swayed like a Ford Explorer . Then you are right. I miss that stuff too.

[Tormy]

Most of the features of Spore are highly innovate. The creation tools are amazing and much much better than most tiresome object designers of other games, including GalCiv 2's ship creator. I can get a vehicle to look right on Spore editors in 5 minutes against the 30 minutes that takes me to make a similar looking ship in GC2's editors. Arguably the best in-game object editor besides Spore's. The creatures' autonomous behavior looks very complex (without being a full ALife sim) and the tribe simulation, while simplistic, manages to feel quite natural. If you stop to play and start to watch them go on their own for a few minutes you can be amused by their personal interactions. Although it's almost pure eye candy with little effect on gameplay.

Uh...I really dont know. I dont see any point in the creature stage at all. Why should I make good looking creatures, when you can win this game with a floating penis even? 
This creature creator is a new toy for the kids also, nothing more really. [Couple of more days and the youtube servers will explode because of the 1.000.000.000 uploaded penis monster videos  ]

[MeshGearFox]

Hey, uh, I just read there are only four kinds of buildings in the entire game. Do, uh... do they differ in stats at all based on how you build them or what parts you put on them, or is the Building Creator purely aesthetic?

Cause if you're just stuck to four buildings total, I mean. Dude, that's seriously WTF.

[McDoomhammer]

The more I read, the more my heart sinks.

Damn you, commercial games development in general.

Damn you.

[Sir Edmund]

I just bought this game yesterday...and damn what a waste of a day of summer holidays, even if it was raining. Cell stage is fun, creature stage remineded me of world of warcraft or guild wars (charge up moves suck). tribal stage = RUSH!. civilisation stage = RUSH!. I have played economic,religion and military and there ain't much difference. Space stage is somewhat amusing. Now its uninstalled and i deleted GTA SA to have enough space for this .

Why did they have to rape such a good concept.

Damn EA.

[eerr]

i should have seen this coming, massively awesome graphics, with the manager himself admitting they dont have the time to develope it properly.

its more of a wii game, like monster "miis"(circaratures of people, depicted as in those commercials)

butter spread too thin, of course, the sequal is gonna have most of that stuff....

[MeshGearFox]

It's just sort of funny because if Wright really HAD wanted to make sim everything, I mean, holy crap. He already made SimEarth, SimLife, SimCity, and The Sims (and then, of course, elements of SimIsle, SimPark, etc. would play into this, too). It's not like there's some outside developer trying to emulate the SimWhatever serieses success by starting an ambitious project to remake and merge Wright's games into a single, cohesive experience.

It's Wright doing it. Merging all of his old games into one. I mean jesus christ it can't be that hard has he never played his own games or something?

[olemars]

Perhaps he's sick and tired of them and really just want to play Pokemon all day instead.

[Makrond]

You're looking at Spore from entirely the wrong viewpoint, methinks. It's not supposed to be a SimEverything, it's supposed to be something completely different from all his other Sim games. On this point, at least, it's a success.

I mean, it's definitely got those cute little moments that you remember from The Sims, and some of the twisted humour that always tends to get around in a Will Wright/Maxis game; but apart from that, it's trying to be something entirely different, and it is. In its own adorable, quirky little way, it's quite fun.

But then, I watched Tomb Raider and thought it was awesome.

[Ioric Kittencuddler]

If something is disappointing, we must just be looking at it the wrong way? 

Say you were promised a hundred dollars, but instead you got ten rupee.  What other way is there to look at it?

[McDoomhammer]

Well, to put it slightly less bluntly than Ioric... I'm one of those people who can't see movies of books that I've read.  You know?  I don't mind movies of books I don't know about because I can approach from a fresh perspective, but if I read the original text, I can't help but grumble about all the stuff they changed, why did this need to be different, and so forth.  Credit where credit's due for imagining other things well, but I'm a total pedant when it comes to deviations.

This would be the same.  I would see, not a fun little diversion, but a broken and neglected shadow of the wonderful things they promised us, which I happily waited years for.  I see no reason to pay money for that.

Edited to add:  YMMV.  I'm not the sort of book purist who shouts at those who can see a movie as an entertaining work in and of itself, I just can't.

[Areyar]

Heh.
I feel it is the shamelessly (ab)using of intellectual property as scenery (i.o.w. 'skins') that bothers most people most about such movies and games borrowing the name of famous books.
It is mainly a commercial strategy; 'tapping' an existing market for companies.
While indie developers or fan-mods are generally more true to a concept (be it borrowed IP or gameplay) because these are not led by market forces, but by personal (or community) passion for that concept.
I just try to view such things as a 'new' game/movie using some of the same ideas as the source material.
Like a tiny genre.
When viewing a vampire movie, you expect certain things, but they are not mandatory for instance. 

anyhow, spore.
A letdown. Can't see expansions improving this 'tutorial game'.
Even the concept of 'sandbox game' has been villified!
you can't ignore the game 'path', as nothing else has concequences.
BTW, has anyone seen AI attack another AI in tribal stage yet?

About reviews/media cover:
The media STILL unfortunately insist on calling this an 'evolution game, bringing the concepts of evolution to the masses'.
My @$$!
If it mimics anything, it is creationalism, even WW has said so (IIRC). The only unchangeable inherited features are those that are behavioural rather than genetic in nature, such as being aggressive or diet.
[Species commonly evolve from herbivore to predator ...going back is more problematic, but is still possible if the creature was omnivorous in not too distant past. (predation is a shortcut, requiring less machinery to operate. Lugging around five stomachs is not efficient for an omnivore, so are lost.)]
I did find that at 'hard' level, only those parts that are on the creature get 'unlocked', which is a little more realistic than what occurs at 'normal' mode.
The fact that player agression leads to being stuck with the concequences is a good concept, only marred by the fact that the only difference in being rel or mil is the type of weapon.





As for a Spore 'as it was promised' ....
I suggest having limited player interactions with the creatures themselves.
Focussing on being 'the Creataur' and creating 'scripts' for behaviour, gene, etc. 
This would be quite similar to the SIM games of SE and SL.

Alternatively, base evolutionary options (if given choices) on the actual actions of the player-creature rather than by player-choice.
Such as mechanic would require an extensive hints system to alert the player to what his actions are affecting (itself and surroundings).

[Tormy]

I just bought this game yesterday...and damn what a waste of a day of summer holidays, even if it was raining. Cell stage is fun, creature stage remineded me of world of warcraft or guild wars (charge up moves suck). tribal stage = RUSH!. civilisation stage = RUSH!. I have played economic,religion and military and there ain't much difference. Space stage is somewhat amusing. Now its uninstalled and i deleted GTA SA to have enough space for this .

Why did they have to rape such a good concept.

Damn EA.

Exactly. I dont really care about the money what I lost, but I am annoyed, because I wanted to see a GOOD game, just like everyone else. Bleh.

[Deon]

I usually download "preview" versions first (and they hardly inspire me to do it with their DRM system) and if I like it I buy the localised licensed game. It saves a lot of my nerves.

[Sean Mirrsen]

That's usually my way as well, though you'll have to admit, it's hard to use on our local titles like Space Rangers and IL-2.