Finally, the galaxy stage. The most robust and challenging section of Spore, the galaxy is huge and offers real choices for diplomacy and aggression. If you want to make friends with another species, just do a mission or two for them and earn their trust, then open trade lines. The more missions performed and the longer trade lines are open, the sooner they’ll ask if you want to buy them out. Prices for whole planets are very expensive, but after collecting a few, currency isn’t an issue.

 

 

Traveling the galaxy, making new friends, terraforming uninhabited planets, establishing new colonies and fighting enemies is what it’s all about. Diplomacy is fairly limited, with either paying enemies off, offering to open trade lines and doing missions. There are tons of different missions to perform over the hundreds of worlds, spanning the entire galaxy, and of course growing your own empire is at top of the list of things to do.

All said and done, each of these stages is a test of patience and time. Gathering food, conquering the world and even the galaxy takes time, not effort. Very little thinking is required. There are no special weapons to collect, no strategies to perform, no thought required whatsoever. Simply click and press. And just like the playground getting boring after you’ve played with everything, Spore grows tiresome.

 

 

Considering how large the game is, it begs the question: how can this have happened? Doing too much with too little, it seems. Spore certainly has its moments, and is a very well designed and well made game. Yet instead of pursuing the things that could make it into not only a great game, but an excellent and perhaps the best game of our time, it falls closer to minesweeper. Follow the numbering and you’ll know which buttons to press to win the game. 

Spore also lacks multiplayer, which is devastating considering how incredible multiplayer could be for such a game. Even with its lack of thought, pitting players against each other would allow for the most extreme form of intelligent multiplayer gameplay, in any section above the tribal stage. It would essentially be Tribal Wars in three dimensions; addictive, creative, strategic and fun.

These two things, as well as the lack of purpose with creations, puts Spore farther back than we expected based on the tens of previews and videos we’ve seen on the game. It’s a shame; even one of these three factors would have made Spore infinitely more exciting, but in the end it’s just another trip to the playground. Fun for a time, but not exciting or inspiring.

You are currently logged in as Logout?