Like many other gamers who run in the obsessive preorder circuits, I managed to pick up a copy of Spore the other day from my local Gamestop. That says something about how much I wanted the game, becuase my local Gamestop is a pit of evil and hate, and yet I was willing to bite the bullet and give them my money just so I could be assured a copy. However, Gamestop hatred really deserves its own rant, so I guess I’ll keep this one constrainted to Spore, and what I think about it.

First of all, let me say that I like Spore. I think it’s a wonderful concept. A game where you can make bascially anything and follow its evolution from cell to space god is just phenominal. Its a lot like that video you used to watch in high school, “Powers of Ten,“ the one where you zoomed in and out until you were both out in deep space and focused on quarks at the same time. Let’s face it, in high school, that was cool, and in college, with the aid of a few… ahem… performance enhancers, it was cool once again. So take that all and put it into a game and well, shouldn’t it be just as cool?

Yes… yes it is, and as such I think Spore is one of the best instances of games-as-art that we have seen hit the market in some time. But maybe I’m getting a little ahead of myself.

Let’s go over Spore really quickly for those of you who don’t know what the hell it is. Spore is a PC game by Maxis (the guys who brought you Virtual Crack — I mean, Sim City). While you play Spore, you take control of a species, and develop its evolution through several different game modes. You start as a cell which plays out like an old school arcade game of eat or be eaten, and then you eventually evolve into a creature which plays alot like an MMO, with different keys corresponding to different actions in battle. Following this you eventually get to the tribal stage which plays out a bit like a real time strategy, and the civilization stage which plays like a bit more like a sim game (like Civilization or Sim City). Finally you hit space, which plays like a mission-based exploration game, until you eventually hit the center of the galaxy and determine the answer to life itself. Spoiler spoiler, the answer is 42. No seriously, just look at the Spore mission log. The answer is seriously forty-two.

Anyway the biggest draw to Spore has by far been the editors you get to play around with. Each stage of the game gives you some sort of editor, a cell editor in the cell stage, a creature editor in the creature stage, an equipment editor in the tribal stage, a vehicle editor in the civilization stage, and a spaceship editor in the space stage, that eventually gives way to the ability to edit and terraform planets themselves. The interesting thing about these editors is that you can make just about anything, becuase every creation is procedurally animated. In dumbed-down terms, that means that no matter what you create, the computer will be able to design, texture, and animate your creation as if a pro modeler designed it.

Your creations are then spread throughout the universe for other players to interact with, making Spore quite literally a universe built by the Internet itself. Yes, this does mean that 30 percent of the sentient creatures in the universe are giant walking pensies, but its ok, becuase the game is so open ended,you can in fact create a race of creatures solely to eliminate all the penises in the galaxy, eventually fleshing out the chronicles of Penis Hunter Z, the savior of space.

So if I were to run down Spore, the game basically starts when a penis-shaped meteor crashes down on a penis-shaped planet’s penis-shaped ocean and breaks open so that penis-shaped microorganisms could eventually evolve into penis-shaped creatures and pull themselves up onto penis-shaped land so that they can make penis-shaped huts which would eventually become penis-shaped cities until they can create a penis-shaped starship to go out and explore the penis-shaped universe. However, as interesting as this sounds, there has been a whole lot of penis-shaped hate for Spore out on the Internet. The chief concern is that the penis-shaped modes Spore has all lack in depth when compared to a full-blown game. For example, the tribal stage apparently dosen’t hold a candle to penis-shaped Warcraft 3.

To tell you the truth, I don’t understand these issues people have. They are comparing a portion of a game to a full game. Of course the portion won’t compare to a full game. Thats just not how things work. I don’t see people complaining that the mini-games in Mario Party or Warioware aren’t as deep or complex as Super Mario Galaxy. I think people are missing the bigger picture here, which is that Spore attempts to simulate just about everything and somehow still manages to do it. Heck, even the reviewers that I have seen that seriously knock the game still reached civilization stage in their first day playing. That is a good 9 hours of gameplay or more! A game that keeps you playing non-stop for nine hours can’t be all bad, right? (Except maybe for your social life.)

Other common gripes are “the game is too easy” which is commonly uttered by people who play the game on… dhurrrr. the easy setting, and that its portrayal of evolution is not accurate, to which I say playing several thousand generations of creatures hoping that one of them will randomly change their appearance dosen’t strike me as very fun. Overall, I think that spore is a victim of overhyping, just like Smash Bros. Brawl was. People expected the world, and when they only got a really good game instead of the holy grail they were disappointed. This dosen’t change the fact that at heart, Spore is still a really good game. I think more people have to pull back for a minute and think of that.

Maybe people are dissapointed becuase the original eight stages of Molecule, Cell, Underwater, Creature, Tribal, City, Civilization, and Space were cut down into five due to fear that the Molecule puzzle game was needless and didn’t mesh with the life-themed nature of Spore, the underwater stage was too like the creature stage, and that the city stage was just a poor excuse to add Sim City mechanics into the game. Maybe its becuase some editors like the cell editor have become less flexible. Maybe its just becuase people are whiney little babies who want their games to have no flaws, but for some reason people are ready to bash the fuck out of Spore, when GTA4 got 10’s and shit across the board.

WTF guys! I think this really says something about us as a culture. The introspective scientific look on the evolution of the universe gets bashed while the immigrant shooting the black people gets a perfect ten. Wonderfuck. Indy reviewers and reviewers in the UK and Austraila have been giving Spore scores in the high nines, but we give it eights, sevens, sixes, and I even saw someone rate it a five. Why? Becuase there isn’t a tank to crush buildings with or prostitutes to fuck? Do we all seriously have THAT much of an aversion to thinking?

Now, you’re allowed to dislike Spore – just give me a valid reason. “I’m not into sim games” is one. “I’m not one for game compilations“ is another. “Will Wright killed my father and raped my mother,” while slightly disturbing, is yet another valid reason to dislike Spore. However, “easy mode is easy” doesn’t make the cut. “Spore is not Warcraft 3, or WoW, or some other pimping of the Warcraft franchise” also dosen’t make the cut. If you want to play WC3 play WC3, if you want to play Spore, then play Spore. If you are stupid, you probably aren’t reading this rant.

Admittedly, there are some gripes to be had with Spore. It could be more in depth, there could have been more attention to game mechanics, so on so forth, but overall, I like the ambition. I like that there is a game that tries to simulate everything. I like that the game causes us to think about the origins of the universe. I like that the game ties in evolution, religion, politics, economics, astronomy, and much much more. The game is huge, and THAT is what is alluring about it, and other than the depression that comes from sinking 50 hours of my life into one game in 3 days, I have to say the emotional and mental aspects of Spore, the sort of gut wrenching feeling you get when you zoom out from your home planet to see the entire galaxy and you go “wow… that is how small I am” are very unique and enduring to the game. Not to mention since the circumstances you are given for your starting planet vary greatly every time you set out as a cell, no two games of spore are alike. I don’t say this lightly, the game really does have nearly infinite replay value.

So what is the final veridct on Spore? It’s good. Give it a shot. Seeing your creations end up on other planets is a load of fun. Watching how people react to things you have made is just as fun. Every stage is simple yet enjoyable, and overall it is worth the 50 dollars you pay for it. If you still disagree with me, well you can just get back in your penis-shaped spaceship and go back to your penis-shaped homeworld because although you may have legitimate penis-shaped concerns about spore, chances are you’re just being a dick.

A rant post by Angelo on September 18, 2008