Review in Progress - SPORE™

What's a "Review in Progress" (aka RIP) ? A RIP is a review of a game I have not finished but have played enough to make some judgement calls about. Be aware that a RIP can change drastically before it is finished as the game may offer some suprises, patches, etc to change the outcome.

SPORE™
Developer: William Wright, Produced by Electronic Arts

------------------------------------

I received Spore™ as a Christmas gift and just now had the time to try it out yesterday. I have played through the Cell stage and have gotten to the land stage.
As of this moment the game just doesn't hold me. There's plenty to do, a lot of "evolving" work to do, but honestly I don't feel like messing with it much. I would say the graphics are too childish but that's not it. The whole game takes a huge back burner in the reality department. It feels like I don't have to even try to succeed in the game. No matter how many times I fail or die I get to try again with no repercussions. That's not evolution. Something better would have been if I died then I would lose some body parts that caused me to die. Like say I have a flipper that doesn't let me swim fast enough away from predators so I die 3 or 4 times in a row. The game could then think.. hmmm this fin he has is causing him to die. Remove it and lets see if he can "evolve" enough to use a better suited one. To me if your going to make an evolution game your going to want to stress the evolving aspect. Evolving isnt running eating enough stuff until you have enough money to upgrade, which is why this game fails.

Visuals: I'll give the graphics a solid C (7 points) . They do the job but are nothing to write home about. Actually they look very GameCubish.

Audio: First thing I had todo was click to the options screen to turn off theenoughing fairy music. The ingame sounds are fair do what they should but again are average and nothing special. Another C (7 points)

RE-playability: There I would have to give them an A (15 Points). There is tons of replayability. Wether it is something you actually want to play is not the point of this grade. But there is plenty to re-do here.

Multi-player: This is actually in a way built in. If you online when you play then your getting the benefit of other players right away. Creatures, planets, etc are auto populated and evolve around you from other players. The actuall MP part I have not tested so For now I have to get it a solid A as the parts I did see worked.

Added Functionality: Again this is something the game seems built for. Very robust tools and potential for something better to be done with the engine. Another A

Immersion: Now here is where we hit a brick wall. Does the game pull me in? ot at all. All I could wait for was the next "upgrade" so I could get out the cess pool. Now that I'm on dry land I can't want to get somewhere else as I'm bored more than a monk in Tibet. This one gets an F for Failure. (1 point)

Fun: Again another brick wall. Not fun. I'm 35, have studyed evolution and personal beliefs aside, if this is how things were thenI'm surprised animals wanted to thrive. Dull as my Grandpapppys Axe. It's not an F as I have to take my age into consideration so I'll give it a D (4 points)

Recognition: This game was hyped to the stone age (lol) and back. The game is/was popular until you actually play it and then most people don't play it past the first day.
But ask someone about the game Spore™ and they know what your talking about.
They get an A+ on name brand. (16 Points)

Remember this is a RIP review so it's short, and not finished but as of Day +1 of playing it the score stands at:

C+ (80 Points)