Poll: Spore: Biggest Disapointment of the Year?

[LOOY]

Well, spore isn't a bad game, it just doesn't come anywhere near the expectations, since the first few E3 trailers the game seems to have gotten less deep, and stupidly short.

I blame the lack of depth on them trying to create 5 Stages that "Sims players" could get through pretty easily, when they should have focused on maybe just the first/last 3 stages and made them a lot more refined.

Sure, added depth is confusing for casual gamers, but the game gives you infinite lives and that's what easy mode is for.

The only real redeemer is the creature creater which, after about 3 hours just becomes a glorified gimmick.

 

[HSIAMetalKing]

I wasn't disappointed, per-se-- I was sort of expecting "beating" the game to take a bit longer, but I did enjoy my first playthrough... I guess it just wasn't quite worth $50.

 

[Willwillwritehiswill]

The problem with spore is that it was overhyped way too much. It's by no means a bad game, but most gamers were expecting some kind of chariot from the heavens to fly down and deliver this game along with the best blowjob ever.

puffer fish...

 

[Copter400]

I think it's a little silly to call a game the 'X Y of the Year' when there's still a bunch more games coming out.

 

[astaldodhol]

The problem with spore is that it was overhyped way too much. It's by no means a bad game, but most gamers were expecting some kind of chariot from the heavens to fly down and deliver this game along with the best blowjob ever.

puffer fish...

I have to agree with you. It was overhyped. Will Wringt was afraid of that.
People keep complaining about it, the only thing they really did leave out was the under-water stage.
It's a good game, but not worth what I paid for it. (Iceland is expensive)
Plus, it's Will Wright, there will most likely be expansions, and hopefully it'll make the game longer.

 

[mightysteve]

What? We've had Too Human this year! At least spore turned out playable. Too Human's been hyped up longer than spore and turned out to be dreadful (whereas Spore was just not that great.)
I think the other thing about Spore is that if you watched the videos and such before it came out it was obvious that the gameplay wasn't going to have too much depth (e.g. the RTS sections were blatently less complex than a real RTS) and that turned out to be the case. The bits people were looking forward to about Spore (the community and customization features) are pretty much just as good as, if not better than, what was expected.
...And at least it's something a bit different. Most people on these forums (myself included) would argue that psychonaughts was a fantastically stunning game, but that was mainly because it dared to be a bit different. Taken at face-value on it's merits as a platforming game, it was undoubtedly flawed.
For the record I'm not saying Spore wasn't dissapointing, just that it's not quite the huge dissapointment some people seem to think it is.

 

[Simski]

For me, spore was slightly disappointing.
However not much, and I still love the game.

 

[Theo Samaritan]

I love the game but it took me a couple of playthroughs before I stopped hitting a brick wall when I reached the space stage. Going from relatively relaxed goals to a mission based game resembling a mix of masters of orion and grand theft auto threw me a bit.

 

[Tjebbe]

I have only played a few hours now, just entered the city phase. So far, it hasn't been a dissapointment to me.

The first phase is cute (and so far has had the best graphics, it was a bit of a disappointment that the further i got, the quality of the graphics seemed to go down).

The creature phase did not feel like much fun, until I realized that it should definitely not be seen on its own; it's the creature *generator* that is the game here, and the gameplay of the phase itself is merely to show off (to yourself) how crazy/cool/scary/funny your little beast is becoming as you fight or befriend other creatures, change your creature, and repeat. The mechanics and 'missions' can definitely use some work though, but the focus and enjoyment are mostly in the builder itself.

Then came tribal. There seem to be a lot of things missing here, why only a select number of buildings? Why can't we make these on our own (like in the next phase)? Overwhelming an enemy is a bit fun, but kind of the same every time. It could be that i'm not a big RTS fan, but this phase really feels incomplete.

I have only just entered the civilization phase, and got totally beaten (everybody declared war on me almost instantly when i took over a neighbouring city with my only 3 tanks, laughing like an evil overlord, but not for long), so i can't say too much about it. At first you get to design your tanks and city hall, for which I took a bit of time; An evil overlord has to have an evil-looking castle, right? But when you are asked to design more buildings it's a bit too much to do at once. Again, the focus is probably on the creation, but I haven't seen how these buildings actually affect gameplay. If at all. Luckily, as far as the vehicles go, it seems to be more like the creature phase. But again, I haven't played this phase for long, and time will tell for me.

Overall, I am having fun with it, and I am certainly not disappointed (yet). I'm not sure how long the game stays fun, and if it shouldn't be priced less. Especially when you just know that there's gonna be a lot of expansion packs coming, which can be a good or bad thing depending on your point of view.

There really is a lot of room for expansion, and sometimes it feels like stuff is left out intentionally for that. Yes Tribal Phase I Am Looking At You.

I'd give it a 7 out of 10 so far.

 

[Credge]

The game needs more individual attention in each phase. You don't spend enough time in each phase to be honest. I felt that the creature phase was very, very short. Nothing of substance to be found. The sneaking mechanic was the only thing I enjoyed, but it wasn't anything spectacular. The game from tribal to civ is exactly the same. Mass units and send them to an enemy. About as hard as it gets.

The space age was fun for a while, but I felt it lacked any sort of depth. Trade routes are only used to buy enemy cities and not to generate cash? Why can't I use trade routes to go inbetween planets so I can generate cash and then use diplomats for the cash bit instead? Why can't I have some of my own ships in my fleet, and if I can, why is the option not obvious to me? Why can't I ally with the grox no matter how hard I try?

Another thing that threw me off was the lack of actual choice. In the tribal stage you have three choices.

1. Kill the enemy tribes.

2. Ally with the enemy tribes.

3. Kill some of the enemy tribes and ally with the rest.

The exact same thing is found in the civ stage, except it's more along the lines of.

1. Spam conversion units.

2. Spam military units (same thing).

3. Buy your enemies.

Not very fun overall. The creature creator is the best part, but until some quality expansions come out, I don't think the game is worth anything more than $20 =\.

 

[Ixus Illwrath]

I was extremely disappointed with it, but at the same time I'm still playing it. It's a great game, but not as great as many of us thought it might be.

I also avoid the early stages like the plague now that I've done them all once.

 

[Lilim]

The editors and such were always what excited me most, I was not looking forward to having to go through the game aspect to get to all of them... I figured the gameplay portion would be shallow and unenjoyable. I was right. Luckily it was also easy to breeze through and get to the meat of why I bought the software.

 

[Kukakkau]

Besides the Total War series or equivilent RTS or online game, how many single player games keep you entertained for much longer than a week?

pretty much every one ive had and liked. i still play rome total war and its been out for like 5 years

and spore wasn't a disappointment for me. never thought it would be any good from the start

 

[nimerix]

Honestly I think Spore is a great game. The problem was all the hype surrounding it. When this much hype builds around a game, it will appear as groundbreaking as the second coming of a messiah. What did we all expect Spore to be? A multifunctional platform capable of everything from entertainment to sandwich creation?

 

[aaron552]

Interesting... no one has mentioned the DRM yet
As a game, I will not be buying it. For two reasons:
1. It is mind-numbingly boring after you get over the gimmick of designing everything (It's mostly pure cosmetics anyway)
2. It's an EA game. EA generally seems to assume that its paying customers deserver a worse game than their pirates. I will use Spore as an example, since this topic about spore: The paying customer can only activate (and therefore install) their game a maximum of 3 times. The pirate gets unlimited installs. Go figure.
Spore was a dissapointment in the gameplay department coupled with a rude slap in the face in the form of DRM. I'd rather save my money and buy Far Cry 2 and Prince of Persia instead, at least Ubisoft treats its cutomers better than EA [/rant]

 

[Versuvius]

well. I have spore. I torrented it. Im bored with it after 2 days (filled all my saves up with completed games (two) and rest space stage). So...eh i wasted no money and farted in EAs face. Im happy

It was over hyped and not as GODLY awesome as i wanted, but oh well. nothigs been godly awesome since hmm...Painkiller?