Spore - Initial Impressions

Will Wright, the legendary creator of the Sims franchise, has always strived to make games that are less than conventional. His games are designed to allow the player to customise their experience to their individual preferences by providing a plethora of options and tools.

Spore takes these design elements to a whole new level. The game involves developing a being from a single celled organism to an all-powerful, space faring race.

As your creature evolves you acquire various body parts that you can add to it. The level of customisation is unparalleled and best of all, once you have finished fleshing out your creature (no pun intended), the game animates your character in a life-like manner. You can make your character dance, jump, laugh and cry – the parts you have used determine each animation.

All creatures are uploaded to a ‘Sporepedia’ database that makes them available to every other users game. Because of the variety in both creature creation and the other entities you encounter, no game is ever the same.

The game itself is a collection of mini games and at present I’ve only gotten as far as the first two. The first level of your evolution sees you begin as a single celled organism and involves consuming food and/or other organisms in a similar way to pac-man. To quote Qui Gon Jinn from Star Wars “there is always a bigger fish” so beware of organisms significantly larger than your creation. Once you have evolved to the point of sentience you develop legs and make your way on to land.



The second stage sees your fledgling species encounter other races that you can either make friends with or attack. This area of the game, also known as the creature stage, involves your creature exploring their surroundings and discovering the remnants of deceased creatures. Some have said that this is the make or break stage and players will either decide they can’t get enough of the game or will turn it off.

Personally, I’m thoroughly enthralled with the experience so far and I’m looking forward to progressing through the Tribe, Civilisation and Space stages. However, time will tell on whether this game has the depth in gameplay to compel me to play through it more than once. Spore is truly innovative in its design and provides users with a world in which you can truly customise your experience.

I’ll post further impressions on the later stages as I progress further.