HAX9000 has 7 chronicles

1. SPORE- A Review
   

   Player Chronicle -- Posted on Sep 22 2008

   Cover your eye stalks here comes my SPORE review.
   
   This review is going to seem simple. As simple as Spore.
   
   Graphics - Cute and ugly...in a warcraft 3 sort of way. The animations are a technical marvel...in a jet engine strapped to a big wheel sort of way. No matter how many legs you tack on it still moves in a realistic fashion and no matter how many legs you tack on it still does the same as if you only had 2. The game has a cartoonish feel to it. Which probably gives hints as to its target market. That said though, my computer is pretty high end and I noticed no slow down or hiccups. Haven't tired it on other computers yet.
   
   Controls - Easy to use and fairly intuitive in the intro levels...a lot less intuitive in the final space stage. More on that later.
   
   Plot / Storyline - Take a microorganism and turn it into a space fairing civilization.
   
   Gameplay - I am going to break it down for you into 5 parts. Depending on how you do each phase you will get different abilities in the final space stage.
   
   Cell phase- You swim your little creature around eating plants, animals or anything else you can get your mandibles on. You keep eating, you keep getting bigger and more complex. Eventually just as you get the hang of the game and start enjoying it you get the boot to dry land. Which brings us to the creature phase.
   
   Creature- Here is where your skills in designing sporn will really come in handy! Well kinda. You can either tack some legs on your organism, give it a full redesign, or you can go online and download someone else's creation. After you have your creature just the way you want it (i made a red scorpion creature) it is time to start eating other creatures! The creature phase of the game puts you on land with a bunch of different creatures which you can either made friends with or have for lunch. The more you kill or make nice with the more parts will open up in the creature creator. Each of these parts has a couple different stats that effects what your creature can do and how well it does it. After you have become the alpha creature in the world it is time for the tribal phase.
   
   Tribal Phase - this phase really disappointed me. The previous two stages were really fun and exciting. This phase turns out to be nothing more than a overly simple RTS. Think of it as Age of Empires for infants. I would say kids but I have had my butt handed to my by many kids in hardcore RTS games like Warcraft 3 and Starcraft so obviously they don't need the game dumbed down this much. Basically the goal in this phase is to either kill everyone else or to make nice with them all. Do we see a pattern developing kiddies? Well being a RTS vet I decided to zerg rush all the other tribes with spears and torches. Worked like a charm. On to the Civ phase.
   
   Civilization - Being a Civ 2 and Civ 3 nut I was way psyched for this phase. Now that you have turned all other tribes into mulch it is time to make your first city. Now you can use the creature creator to make buildings, cars, boats, and planes. It is kind of fun, but again if I put 20 guns on my tank of a vehicle I want it to do 20x the damage as just 1 gun. But no...they have put in a dumb downed system for how to determine what you can and can't do. Basically you can go mostly damage, mostly speed, mostly tank or balanced. That is it. 10 jets or 2 your plane will go the same speed. Again with such an open-ended creator EA has decided to counter act all that awesome by boxing your creations into predefined templates. This line of reasoning spills over like curdled milk into the game play mechanics of the civ phase. Want to take an army of your citizens to raze enemy cities? Too bad you have to use your shiny new tank. Thats all well and good, but again the goals boil down to kill, befriend, or ally to kill. This phase is a cross between Civilization for toddlers and a RTS for dummies. Luckily like every phase before it, it is over with very quickly. Enter the space stage.
   
   Space - The final frontier...er stage. Ok so I guess all the prior stages have been leading up to this. Remember all those simple skills your learned like zerging other bases and kill or be killed? Well none of that applies here. The space stage is nothing like the previous stages. Sure you will recognize your creature and that palace you created as your seat of government...but that is it. The space stage has a great deal of other things going on. First thing I noticed...there seems to be lots of other warlike folks out there just like you! Within 10 min of starting the space stage I had my home base crying for help because aliens were in our base stealing our treasures. Here is where you find out you can't make an armada to crush your foes or launch ground troops to assist in defending your cities. You get 1 space ship. With a paltry laser beam that would struggle to cut open a can of creamed corn, let alone a rival space ship. Oh and btw...They can bring buddies along to make war on you. Of course you can buy upgrades for your ship. But first you have to unlock them! By doing a bunch of random crap! Like if you want unlock that new death ray you better get to dying a bunch because you are out matched from the start. And remember those skills you got for beating up on every other creature on your planet for eons? Well they amount to 2 or 3 special skills or parts you have to buy. Even with all these new and difficult problems the game still holds your hand and makes it really easy to win. Make some allies, drop some colonies and make a bee line for the center of the galaxy (which is friggin huge btw). Once there game over....you can keep playing if you want but why would you want to?
   
   Final Score and Thoughts - Should you buy Spore? If you can read I would say the game would be too easy for you. Want a challenge? Go out and buy FLOW for the PS3, Age of Empires 3, Civilization 3, and Galactic Civilizations. You will get a lot more enjoyment, be challenged, and you will learn a lot more about the world than you will playing Spore. Now what are you waiting for get your butt to best buy, you got bargain bin games to get!!!

   
   

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HAX9000 has 2 comment s on this chronicle.

1. HAX9000
   Posted On Sep 22 2008

   Yeah don't waste your time or money lol. If you want to try it out I have 3 more installs left. Doubt I will be using them

2. BEN
   Posted On Sep 22 2008

   GREAT REVIEW HAX! (Is that 2 in 1 day?!)
   
   With so much discussion about this game, I've been waiting to hear some thoughts from a reliable source. It sounds like a decent game, but maybe one that you pass on...isn't it more expensive than the average PC video game?
   
   Anyways, I enjoyed this read and got some great insight on a game that I've secretly been wanting to know more about