The game I’ve been waiting for — one that breaks the mold — has finally been discovered!
Wow — simulation/creature-raising + first-person role-playing + strategy + management + sci-fi! From a single-celled organism all the way up to galactic overlord! Whenever I play a strategy game, I never get to enjoy the harmonious economic growth that comes after world peace in the late game; when I play a management sim, there’s no military element; and a first-person RPG lacks the big-picture feel. Once you get bored with a few things, you discover that combining them creates something else entirely — something fresh and exciting. It’s so thrilling — I no longer have to fool myself into building cities in RN or Generals, and I don’t have to scheme about building military bases to expand in SimCity… By pure chance I came across EA’s Spore, and it was love at first sight — I only wish I’d found it sooner.
From a first look at the intro, this game blends elements from a lot of games. In it, your little creature goes through 6 stages (if you don’t like subjective takes, feel free to scroll past). The first two stages are a bit more primitive, mostly RPG and action elements. The tribal stage kicks off clan communes… then comes the city stage, which maybe feels a bit like Beautiful Genesis… then the civilization stage, where you’re basically playing Rise of Nations… and finally the space stage: Homeworld + Sins of a Solar Empire… Awesome. A game where you can free-form it from so many angles — hehe, that’s enough to keep me hooked for quite a while. Hey, Raccoon, Old Ox, all of you — come give it a try already. The trailer music is actually from SimCity 4…
This game does have its flaws: by today’s standards the visuals really aren’t much, and some online critics say it’s not as perfect as you’d imagine… Whatever — everyone forms their own opinion once they play it. I’m off to download the demo.
Official screenshots: http://www.ea.com.cn/zh-cn/games/pc/spore/spore/screenshots/
Official description of the game’s features:
Fully control your creature’s fate and guide it through six stages of evolution:
Ocean stage: Compete with other creatures and absorb them to adjust your creature’s form. This is the period of fighting for survival under the microscope.
Creature stage: Venture onto land and teach your creature how to survive and develop in a world beyond your safe haven. Herbivore or carnivore? Social or solitary? The choice is yours.
Tribal stage: You no longer control a single creature, but an entire tribe made up of creatures you’ve created. You can hand them tools and guide their interactions, gradually letting them develop and evolve.
City stage: Lead your species into a golden age, develop technology for them, build, and complete their cities.
Civilization stage: Once your cities are established, your creatures will start looking for opportunities to make contact with other civilizations. You can have them do so through war or peace; the ultimate goal is for your species to rule the planet.
Space stage: It’s time to move to other bodies in your star system. Make quick contact, colonize, or relocate entirely, then head further out into the vast universe in search of other star systems. A new “mission” mode will accompany your expansion and development across the cosmos.
A set of flexible, intuitive tools to spark the player’s creative imagination. Creating a universe full of animals, plants, buildings, vehicles, and planets will be incredibly simple and fun. From the very start, the game is full of endless design possibilities.
The worlds you explore are full of life, plants, buildings, and vehicles, all created by other players and downloaded through a central database. The server selects the creatures and civilizations that suit you best based on the environment you choose, your experience level, and your creature’s abilities. At the same time, your creatures will be uploaded to the server to share with others.
In the game, your creatures and vehicles are generated based on your designs, and their actions and interactions depend on your designs and your encounters in-game. That means the game doesn’t set a fixed path of development for you.
Imagine the attitude other players have when they create creatures and evolve them. Discover the original, primitive information of various creatures in the Sporepedia, and learn about that creature’s evolutionary journey in Spore in another way.
Sept 25 update: I spent 3 hours playing today and got to the tribal stage. Seeing an ocean creature gradually become an intelligent land creature does give you a certain sense of achievement ^_^ This game’s concept is excellent and its subject matter is grand — it tells the evolutionary history of a species in some star system. Too bad the visuals are so childish (I can’t think of a more fitting word for it), and just like SimCity Societies, playing it makes me dizzy… Found an interesting detail: in the second stage, at night you might see a high-tech alien spaceship come visit your planet, so be careful it doesn’t suck you up… PS: If only MS had developed a game with this kind of subject matter.