Is it a good game? Yes, absolutely.
Is it a great game? Eh...probably not.
It's too bad really. Will Wright and his team had all the tools and knowledge to knock it up from a good game to a great game, but they let other...incentives...take the top priority.
I remember reading a review of Spore in the New York Times [http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/05/arts/television/05spor.html] that essentially called Spore a toy instead of a game, which I found extremely strange and insulting at first. However, as he explained, a toy tends to be shallower than a game (hence why toys are generally popular with children and adults tend to quickly lose interest in them). After thinking about it, he had a point. While Spore was interesting at first, it failed to continually stimulate my interest and I quickly became bored. Instead of taking Spore above and beyond, Mr. Wright was quite content to keep it at a more accessible, and thus, dumbed down, level. It's this kind of attitude from people reaching artistic achievements and greater heights, which is one of the reasons why Spore was ultimately so disappointing. It had the potential to be so much more than it is, but this potential was ultimately squandered for greed.
Is it a great game? Eh...probably not.
It's too bad really. Will Wright and his team had all the tools and knowledge to knock it up from a good game to a great game, but they let other...incentives...take the top priority.
I don't think anyone (well, most of us anyways) were expecting an overly complex, deep RTS from Will. We were expecting a game with a little more substance to it though. Spore is one of those games that is meant to be played through multiple times, but it's hard to really enjoy it after the first time since certain parts of the gameplay (AKA the first four stages) are extremely shallow. Shallowness leads to pointless repetition, which leads to boredom, which points to poor gameplay.Joshing post=9.71123.715126 said:
I remember reading a review of Spore in the New York Times [http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/05/arts/television/05spor.html] that essentially called Spore a toy instead of a game, which I found extremely strange and insulting at first. However, as he explained, a toy tends to be shallower than a game (hence why toys are generally popular with children and adults tend to quickly lose interest in them). After thinking about it, he had a point. While Spore was interesting at first, it failed to continually stimulate my interest and I quickly became bored. Instead of taking Spore above and beyond, Mr. Wright was quite content to keep it at a more accessible, and thus, dumbed down, level. It's this kind of attitude from people reaching artistic achievements and greater heights, which is one of the reasons why Spore was ultimately so disappointing. It had the potential to be so much more than it is, but this potential was ultimately squandered for greed.
