It's Time for Another Spore Thread. Again.

[Stark]

It amuses me no end that the internet is now full of 90%+ reviews that all say OH MY GOD WHAT AMAZING POTENTIAL and WOOO PLAYER CONTENT and then turn around and say 'game is shallow and basic, is basically a series of simple toys, has little longevity'.

It appears, as I suggested months ago, that all that's left after the cut features is a series of flash games. A series of flash games that rates in the 90s. And people say videogame journalism is dead...

[Andrew_Fireborn]

Which will need an expansion pack to flesh out.

Well, it is an EA produced Maxis title...

So if it sells, we can expect "Spore: Hula Skirt Hilarity" expansion sometime when they get financially itchy and creatively bankrupt...

[PeZook]

...and all expansion packs will introduce massive bloat and increase loading times 2000% and unbalance all previous expansion packs

I still haven't managed to figure out why Sims expansions had to install gigabytes of data (essentially a whole new game) when all they added was some new gimmicky gameplay mechanic and a crapload of new stuff for your sims...

[loomer]

The Sims 2, at least, had highly inefficient data packaging for music and objects, which was part of it.

[Molyneux]

So as expected, the creators are still the best bits? I'm fine with that. Did they include terraforming and planet-cracker capability like in that preview way back when?

[Ohma]

From what I've read it seems the space stage is the weakest part. The other stages at their worst are shallow versions of the games they're modeled after (which is more or less what I'd expected). However the space stage seems to have a few rather obvious problems.

Enemy alien empires are seemingly able to attack you at set intervals, regardless of their own resources (and the intervals are quite short considering that you apparently already have an assload of missions you're doing at the time), additionally, when alien empires attack, they can send fleets of ships, apparently you can't build fleets to defend your worlds (?! ) and are forced to send your lone UFO back each time you're attacked unless you're okay with your planet's cities getting slagged.

So yeah, other than that disappointing bit, it's looking like Spore is more or less what I'd expected, and so I'll probably buy it...maybe after waiting to hear about modifications to the space stage...and maybe a price drop...and maybe a crack for securom. But hey, I like the Sims 2, and I've been told that game is unmitigated trash so...

[Covenant]

It amuses me no end that the internet is now full of 90%+ reviews that all say OH MY GOD WHAT AMAZING POTENTIAL and WOOO PLAYER CONTENT and then turn around and say 'game is shallow and basic, is basically a series of simple toys, has little longevity'.

It appears, as I suggested months ago, that all that's left after the cut features is a series of flash games. A series of flash games that rates in the 90s. And people say videogame journalism is dead...

In all fairness, that's all it was originally, but the interest wasn't even in any of the gameplay mechanics (which was always basic, just variations of move around and eat things until you level up) but the entire package that was wrapped around it to allow you to create worlds, starsystems, dynamic relationships between user-downloaded members of your galactic neighborhood, and essentially the world's biggest sandbox.

I think people saw that and went like LOLZ SO MUCH DEPTH without thinking. Okay, so you can terraform worlds, or blow them up, or stuff. What do you do then? Seed your guys all over? Okay, you do that. Now what? Do you simple admire how well you've spread your genes? Is there some kind of overall 'game' to win, or are you merely playing for fun?

Playing for fun means, yes, that's it. It's fun to adapt planets, blow them up, engage in warfare with other species (as represented by ONE SPACESHIP going to blow their cities away), but the original idea was just that basic.

At it's most advanced, the game was divided into themes, as you remember. The cell phase was the Pac Man phase. The endgame Space Phase was the Space Invaders phase. The Tribal Phase was the Sim City phase. That's what they had meant to it to be, basically a set of minigames built into a larger context, and all of it driven by the critters you created, evolved, and interact with.

That's a game with a huge amount of replayability, but not an immense amount of depth, and that's fine. It wasn't really about huge depth, it was about the minigames, the fun, the sandbox element and the experience. I don't even believe there was even any discussion of your civilization reaching an untimely end. I never saw anything about fighting off Alien Invasions during your Tribal Phase, or what happens if your cell phase occurs on a world that -gasp- already had a sentient species, or an enemy that uses the terraforming tools to turn your worlds into sulfuric hellholes, and so forth. Even if they delivered exactly the product they had intended, it wouldn't have been anything but the minigames and sandbox.

I still think it's a fun concept and I really like it as a game concept, but it seems like people were making it into something it never was going to be. The badassness of being able to create a creature, go around eating other creatures, and develop your dude from cell to galactic power is still there. I think people just thought that such an epic scale automatically included an awful lot of strategy, or tactical depth, or something... and that's the mistake. You can make even the most complicated and epic scales have simple, glossed over mechanics and that's what they did with Spore. I'm watching the stuff they put out and it honestly seems like nearly the same product they wanted to make, it's just that people are finally realizing that simplifying the entire process of world war down to "build a play-doh aircraft and let it automatically fly around without any user control" makes it just as simple and basic as it appears at first blush.

[Rightous Fist Of Heaven]

Foolish me, I managed to arrange myself neatly into the category of people who expected atleast some depth, some strategy and some tactics thrown together with the ability to take your very own creature from cell to space. Now, I've played my little Posleen from cell to space, and I'm so dreadfully fucking disappointed and pissed off at myself for keeping the faith, or rather keeping my own expectations so high during the entire time Spore was in development.

I managed to subdue my frustration long enough to get to the space stage, expecting grand epic empire building (yes I know, stupid expectations) with space fleets of doom and what do I get, a massive interstellar empire in the end which is represented by ONE FUCKING SPACESHIP! Goddamn it to fucking hell.

[Molyneux]

Foolish me, I managed to arrange myself neatly into the category of people who expected atleast some depth, some strategy and some tactics thrown together with the ability to take your very own creature from cell to space. Now, I've played my little Posleen from cell to space, and I'm so dreadfully fucking disappointed and pissed off at myself for keeping the faith, or rather keeping my own expectations so high during the entire time Spore was in development.

I managed to subdue my frustration long enough to get to the space stage, expecting grand epic empire building (yes I know, stupid expectations) with space fleets of doom and what do I get, a massive interstellar empire in the end which is represented by ONE FUCKING SPACESHIP! Goddamn it to fucking hell.

To be fair, Will Wright said that you'd only get one UFO waaaaay back when the first videos came out a few years back, if I recall correctly.

I'm still getting the game - hopefully they'll introduce some modifications in a month or so.


As for the civilization stages: I've been hoping they kept this bit in specifically. Can you build domed cities underwater, or on airless/hostile worlds?

[Stark]

The Sims 2, at least, had highly inefficient data packaging for music and objects, which was part of it.

Is that why? I of course know all kinds of people with Sims2, and the size of their install for such a basic game aways surprised me. It seems to me it shouldn't take nearly three DVDs to cover less than all the expansions!

Cov, I hear what you're saying, and my amusement isn't really directed at Spore itself (since I'll probably never play it), rather the enormous hype machine - which includes 'fans' - that created the expectations you talk about. It's a flash game, guys, and people with their eyes open have known this for a long, long time. The Molyneux Manoeuvre doesn't change this. (Refering to the famous Peter Molyneux, not you Molyneux

A flash game that gets 95%. That's the real giggle for me - is gaming journalism bankrupt (since the reviews themselves include all kinds of negative comments) or is the game industry simply so jaded (that anything different is automatically good)? OR BOTH?

[DPDarkPrimus]

What game are you referring to there, Stark?

[Covenant]

Stark, I wasn't refuting you, just including it because I wanted to continue in a similar vein. I just find you're one of the few voices who airs contempt and optimism in the same post, so I'm often quoting yours as a jumping-off from mine, since they're such similar perspectives. This frustration I have with games, as well as my ability to accept a diminished depth if they're just honest about it and make it fun, is the same kind of thing I brought out when I made my Mod, and we had long discussions about that which just reinforced my feeling that hating everything isn't the same as hating every possibility. We aren't the misanthropes people make us out to be. I'm using the 'understood you' anyway, not referring to you in specfic, unless I am to assume you are actually a game journalist in disguise.

The game journalism industry, ever should we call it that again, needs to look past the gloss and at the actual game and they'd have seen this as the flash-game compendium that it is. Spore could very likely be a fun game, but it's not deep, and never was, and the journalism on the game has done everyone (except Wright) a disservice by continuing to believe their own hype rather than ever apparently look at the actual game. If you'd read the design docs or prodded Will about it, he was actually quite clear about the minigame aspect. But everyone whose job it was to report this information seemed deaf to it, so their confusion is laughable.

The game industry, from the developers I've talked to personally, seems to understand you need to manage the press well to get the sales you want. I'd put the blame on game journalism for being too gamery and not journalismy enough. They put too much of an emphasis on their own reactions and undefined quantities such as fun than reporting things like content, structure, and gameplay mechanics. The things people tend to base their purchases on are rarely the ones you hear about during the hype phase, despite them being the most important ones to forming an opinion. And the game review business is similarly broken, since it's the same sorts of people reacting to the actual game once it hits their desk.

Even the most objective analysis of something as subjective as 'fun' value is going to be worthless on an individual basis. It would be cheaper, easier and more legitimate just to report on games from a development POV and review them from a gamer's opinion poll point of view. If or if not everyone loves counterstrike has nothing to do with if I'll like it, but knowing what everyone's playing and what the range of opinions on it is can be helpful for deciding what to try and what to buy.

I read a lot of reviews of an adventure game called Darkness Within after I played and beat it, and I thought the game was really enjoyable and a good production, but everyone lampooned it with like 2.5 star rankings. Obviously, this isn't a helpful review for me, even if 99 out of 100 people agree with it. Don't a lot of people buy or tune into these things for the reviews? I can't fault them for wanting to make money off of it that way, but it is indeed totally bankrupt to claim it has any meaning. It's true that game companies often do lean on reporters to get them to report positive reviews or media, but that's just because it's so easy to do, not because the companies have any real power. As a distribution outlet for all their advertising, game journalists could easily demand straight answers and more information, and they'd get it nine times out of ten, but so many of them are actually just gamers and willing to write fluff to get the newest game on their desk or talk to their favorite company. Think of all the popular reviewers or outlets and that'll be the case, I give you my word.

[DaveJB]

A flash game that gets 95%. That's the real giggle for me - is gaming journalism bankrupt (since the reviews themselves include all kinds of negative comments) or is the game industry simply so jaded (that anything different is automatically good)? OR BOTH?

Well, try and understand it from their point of view. They haven't had a major PC exclusive since Crysis (which was only playable on about 2% of PCs), so it's only natural that they'd flip out when a game like Spore showed up on the scene.

On another note, the early reviews for the DS version don't look promising at all. It seems that in getting it onto the DS, they've removed most of the customisation options, effectively turning the game into a really bad RPG with none of the good points of the PC version.

[Molyneux]

The Molyneux Manoeuvre doesn't change this. (Refering to the famous Peter Molyneux, not you Molyneux

ARGH! I wish, I wish, I wish I could change my boardname. I picked that thing before I'd even heard of Peter Molyneux, I just like using things that start with "M".

[Stark]

What game are you referring to there, Stark?

Sorry, Spore itself. It's not 'a flash game', but it's seriously lacking in depth and is apparently a series of toys (hence my stlying of it as a 'flash game'). Spore is recieving very high ratings in reviews that are full of statements like 'game has no depth' and 'not much to it' which amuses me no end.

Sorry Cov, I didn't mean to sound like I was arguing with you. I was just agreeing with what you said.

DaveJB, that's interesting RE the DS version - the DS version of the Transformers game was actually MORE flexible than the mainstream one. And no more 'zomg Crysis needs a monster computer' please, I'll go cross-eyed.

[loomer]

I must admit, the load times in Space are rather impressive. They've got the engine quite well polished in terms of performace (unlike the Sims 2...), it just needs a fucking game on top of it now.

[Molyneux]

Well, I've got a nice shiny new copy of Spore sitting in my room right now...have some cleaning to do before I can install it, though.

Encouragingly, the guy at the GameStop (where the management is shitty but the clerks here tend to be good folks) had nothing but good things to say about the game; they've apparently been playing it in the back room for 3 days by now.

[CaptHawkeye]

The Molyneux Manoeuvre doesn't change this. (Refering to the famous Peter Molyneux, not you Molyneux

The economic Immelman. I just love it when developers talk about things like adaptive AI, open enviornments, or anything else which might be remotely unique. They come to find out over the course of development that they can't invest the minimum amount of effort into this feature to make it work! So out it goes! Quick, spam textures in its place! Failing that, hype and big names!

I can't say everything that happened to Spore surprised me. It just kept getting delay after delay. So it was obvious they were running into one wall after another in development, and began running over budget (or getting dangerously close to it).

Well folks, looks like we're going to give yet ANOTHER seat on the bus to short sighted development schedules. You can take the seat at the back, Spore, Crysis was keeping it warm for you.

[Ohma]

I don't think the problems in Spore are the result of a short development schedule. From what I've read the things that are actual problems (as opposed to problems resulting from people buying into crazy hype) seem more like something that the developers made that sounded good on paper, and quite probably worked fine in testing, but in practice, when being played by people with different play styles from the testers, ends up being annoying as hell. Specifically, it sounds like as long as you take your time in the space stage and avoid ticking off your neighbors until you're significantly better off than they are (which not everyone is going to do) you don't have anywhere near the number or frequency of alien fleets blasting your colonies into rubble, still a problem since the game is still ostensibly a sandbox game like the Sims/Sim City where death is fairly difficult to achieve without conscious effort (or particularly bad luck like my poor sim who burned alive within his first few hours of existence thanks to his non-extant cooking skills, a microwave, and a lazy fire department).

[Molyneux]

I'm up to the 'creature+pack" stage, and so far it's been pretty nifty. Don't know how long the game will hold my attention, but I'm enjoying it so far. Wish the "befriend" minigame were a bit better-defined, though - it's a little hard to tell exactly what affects your ability to do better at it.

[Cycloneman]

I'm up to the 'creature+pack" stage, and so far it's been pretty nifty. Don't know how long the game will hold my attention, but I'm enjoying it so far. Wish the "befriend" minigame were a bit better-defined, though - it's a little hard to tell exactly what affects your ability to do better at it.

Multiple bonuses don't stack; just grab the highest "Charm," "Pose," "Dance," and "Sing" items you can get, and stick whatever else you feel like together.

[Ford Prefect]

I've played a little with it, and what actually impressed me was the way in which the creature evolved during the pack phase, more or less accidentally. We were just messing with the modifier, but looking at the time line, you can see distinct changes in the structure of the creature that looks a little like My First Evolution. The game isn't exactly stellar otherwise, but that was rather nifty.

[Covenant]

The evolution graph is nice, but I wish it was more than just a record of your changes--or I wish I could get new evolutions without mating, or I wish... something. I'd like there to be a greater sense of evolution than the Mechwarriorizing of my critter, buying new guns and such as time goes on.

It wouldn't be so bad if it was like the creature creator was and stuff stacked. I don't want to install buzzsaws on my creature, I'd be happy to install more claws and arms though. Why can't I just add more of something to make it better? The fact that they don't stack is maddening to me, and it ends up forcing my creature to have tons of doodads I didn't want. I really get into the aesthetic value of it, and I like making incremental changes, but I feel like any element of that is simply secondary. I'm more or less forced to make some kind of razor-toothed hellfiend with buzzsaws for nipples to beat the creature game on hard, but then I end up with a really ugly critter--and changing it all in one go back to a better form makes my evolution chart worthless and it makes Darwin sad.

[Andrew_Fireborn]

I don't know about you, but I'm only seeing minor differences in the levels.

The creature I've run from cell to stars only ever had a level 2 bite, something ram, and the spiked ball thing. And it did fine in creature stage. (Especially once I could prowl around with four of them...)

Although that was only on normal.

[Vendetta]

It amuses me no end that the internet is now full of 90%+ reviews that all say OH MY GOD WHAT AMAZING POTENTIAL and WOOO PLAYER CONTENT and then turn around and say 'game is shallow and basic, is basically a series of simple toys, has little longevity'.

Doubly amusing is that basically that's what Will Wright's been saying it was going to be for about the last year.