Spore. From single cell to galactic warlord.

[Mistah Kurtz]

I don't really understand parts of it, my home planet's cities are all producing like 3 spice per hour, and when I put a colony on some shithole planet with no atmosphere I got to put new kinds of buildings on it and they're making closer to 100 spice/hour, is there a way to put those buildings on my home world?

 

[milskidasith]

Inquiry: Do you like Yahtzee's reviews? They point out nothing good as well. Nor are they a "standard" review.

First off: Yahtzee does point out the good and bad in a game. He focuses on the negative a lot, but he will always at least give a nod to the good parts of the game. Second of all, his reviews are pretty normal. Besides being hilarious, vulgar, and set too pictures, if you just read the script with the jokes cut out you would have a somewhat incomprehensive but still readable review.

And I don't like Yahtzees reviews so much for the "review" part as for the "insanly funny" part. But let's not derail this topic further, 'kay? If you want to argue about whether Yahtzee's reviews are standard, let's do it by PM.

 

[Ixus Illwrath]

Hey Leyvin, you should just post your opinion as another review, you'll get it read more thoroughly.

On another note, thought the game didn't have any real challenges until the space stage, and the fish stage (I call it that because you don't start out amoeba-like at all) needed to be a ton more in depth and longer. There's been a bunch of games out already that are just like that, many of which are more complex.

Edit: @ Leyvin - the trade routes aren't there for any reason but to conquer other planets financially, they gain you nothing in sporebucks...

 

[ThaBenMan]

Still doesn't change that it wasn't a review, or at the very least not a good one.

Basically, you put a "this game is fun" message into a report of how your game went, and that isn't exactly a good way to do a review. Besides being terribly unimaginative, I didn't gain any knowledge on Spore from this review.

There are no forum guidelines pertaining to the format of the review, if the user wants to post his homo-erotic spore fan-fiction review then more power to him. As long as he remains in the realm of persuasive writing, and good taste, he's more than welcome to write anything he likes.

Thank you for saying this. It irks me to no end how people in the review forums critique the review itself rather than the thing being reviewed.

Anyway, I think Spore looks pretty cool. If they ever make a 360 version I'll probably check it out.

 

[Tattaglia]

Anyone figured out whats at the centre of the universe (Spore-wise)? I'm betting on a giant Will Wright head. Or llamas.

 

[wilsonscrazybed]

Thank you for saying this. It irks me to no end how people in the review forums critique the review itself rather than the thing being reviewed.

I believe you have misunderstood me. In no way was I trying to say that people shouldn't critique other users work. I believe an outside voice can help a lot with creative things like music or writing. The person critiquing the piece should remain constructive, negative commentary without context are egotism at its ugliest.

What I was trying to say, is that we don't want to limit your creative input to typical 'gameplay, graphics, sound' reviews. Those sorts of 'regular' reviews are always welcome, but we don't want to artificially stifle creativity on the forums with arbitrary rules about what constitutes a review.

Forum guidelines and the unspoken rule of 'don't be a dick' apply here too. We give a lot more leeway to would be review critiques in hope that they will provide quality feedback.

 

[Tanner fool]

not really a review
just like a glimpse of what u can do
and what ur gonna see

 

[BleachedBlind]

It doesn't seem like this is a discussion about Spore anymore. More accurately, this has become more of a debate about what actually constitutes a review.

 

[Leyvin]

Nah, I'd rather not make a review as such; just wanted to put out some thoughts out there.
Totally agree though, I think some stages could've easily been given more depth.

In-fact if Spore does have a real downside, it's the sheer simplicity of it all. I know Will Wright wanted to make it "easy to pick up and play", but I can't help but feel they're ignoring the MicroManagement aspect in their current generation games.

Sim Societies for example was the first SimCity I actually was able to do well without putting in literally hundreds of hours trying to figure out how to do everything; in-fact it seemed almost impossible to do badly at the game. That to me is a shame, as I though the whole point in the word "Sim" was a form of Simulation... While I don't like Micromanagement on say the scale of what colour post-its my civilisation has, I would've prefered a bit more especially something that might enhance the gameplay.

For example creating additional fleets, so that they can defend worlds while you're away from them because... let's say you've decided to head towards the middle of the Galaxy to find the Grox. It was a little annoying to leave with 32 systems under my control, only to return to find that two races had realised I was away in what has become a truely ridiculously powerful craft; and nicked all but 4 of them.

It's just the little things that got to me, that could be solved by Maxis taking a look at similar games and seeing what worked and what was still fun. Best game I ever played where you had a Galactic conquest via Money, Diplomacy and War was Imperium Galactica 2... It's a shame even Digital Reality screwed it up by selling the rights to another company who buggered up the whole concept of the game. It was a lot of fun multiplayer as well, with players able to jump in/out as they pleased with upto 8 other players. Made it a good laugh.

 

[SmugFrog]

What you guys are writing reminds me a lot of the 1st Sims game. There were problems, and eventually they got worked out through patches and expansion packs.

I really believe Maxis held back a lot so they could profit on expansion packs. I'm not complaining about that, as I think I will enjoy the game anyway, but I can't wait to see what type of content is phased in.