Sooo. I never had high hopes for Spore. Well, not exactly. The first time I saw that long demo, I was really impressed. I've been getting less and less impressed as subsequent demos never showed anything new and cemented my views that it'd basically be a lite version of about five other games. Needless to say, however, I don't have any systems this thing can run on and it seriously doesn't sound like something I want to drop 60 dollars on (especially when I just discovered that there are various magnolia species that can be grown indoors. Magnolia + dirt + new pot could easily be 60 dollars).
Let me talk about some old games for a second. I really like SimEarth. Yes, it's dry. Yes, it's confuse. Yes, it's a little too complex. On the other hand, you have some really serious flexibility there, a really fascinating underlying simulator, and only sissies complain about stuff being too complex. So, from my understanding, while Spore IS mostly focused on biology, there is a certain SimEarthishness to the Space portion of the game. So why can't we mess around with planet composition and atmospheric composition and "volcanoes-blowing-uppy-ness-ness"?
Then again, if the focus is on the biology -- and maybe I'm wrong -- but don't creatures stop evolving past the creature phase? That's not the problem I have here, so much. See, I'm sure a lot of you played the old Creatures games (which are now published by Gameware). Those games were pretty neat. Modeled tons of biochemical stuff, learning... and most importantly, genetics and evolution! Sure, your little furry animals wouldn't drastically change in *appearance* over time, but on a biological level, there'd be plenty of evolutiony stuff going on. Also, the things were pretty endearing and expressed emotion... well, at least as well as the things in Spore do, I'd imagine. So it's not like they sacrificed a cute, fluffy exterior for all the wonky, sciencey stuff on the interior (and truth be told, you really could just play it as a virtual pet game if you wanted).
Also, in regards to the Civilization mode... If you wanna go a hard simulator route, which Spore apparently isn't doing, there're the EU games, or one of the related titles like Crusader Kings. Very simmish. Or, if you go the more abstract and gamelike route (with some simmish stuff still in there), modelling the Civilization series as closely as possible would, uh, really work. Like, keep the mechanics nearly identical, and just shorten the gamelength by a bunch if you want to. Maybe shrink the technology tree. Whatever.
Anyway, I guess the first point I'm trying to make is that, from a game standpoint, the reviews of Spore make it sound really unbalanced and shallow -- a lack of solid mechanics, I guess?--, and from a simulator standpoint, if you look at what all of the old Sim games had, or the Creatures games, or the EU games, or whatever, what made them simulators is that if you messed with something, something else in the system would change as a consequence. And from my understanding, there aren't any simulator aspects here at all.
Except even non-simulator games frequently have SOME simmish aspects and that's why you get interesting emergent situations and behaviors.
So, in regards to the Space portion of the game, it did sort of miss the boat there. Star Control 2 had really strong writing and adventure game portions; the Starflight games weren't so heavy on the writing but still had some great RPG and adventure stuff going on. And Space Rangers 2, while... being RATHER lacking from a story/writing standpoint really succeeds in giving you tons of stuff to do and having a world where *things happen dynamically based on how technology and the state of the war are progressing*. It sounds like the Elite sequels. Only without an interesting trade model, and with some really simple empire building stuff thrown in.
Besides. In tribal phase, do your personally designed creatures ever do anything as interesting as a dorf?
I'm not saying it's sounds like a bad game, but if it really is just five lite versions of other games that are, generally, much better that what's shown here, isn't it a better use of my time to play those other games instead?
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Topic: Spore (Read 100206 times)