If the parts about this are true, what with SecuRom, random crashing, and such. Then Spore isn’t just over-rated for those looking for huge variety and serious gaming, but just another case of an EA game that’s been overhyped or even sucks.
I clearly don’t understand why it would still have a lot of bugs, it’s been delayed for years, and apparently the procedural algorithms in generating planets and such needed some work yet as well as a lot more variety in some stages.
So is Spore actually the most over-hyped game of the year, perhaps even in the history of video games?
With an average critic score on that page of 8.6/10 and an average user score of 8.2 out of 10, I’d say that the crap reviews floating around are just people who have a different opinion than everyone else. The majority of reviews are really positive.
There probably is a certain amount of over-hype. Most games can’t live up to any hype at all. Spore would have been worth making, even if it was total crap.
I agree, it does look a bit shallow. For instance, the way the creatures walk. Not realistic at all. It looks kind of like the torso is floating and the legs just wriggle about a bit.
I understand that it would be very hard to program it properly, because torso weight and leg lenght and all sorts of physics come into play, but that doesn’t make this less ugly…
I guess it’s fun to create a character, but it’s as the guy said in his review: the planets are generated according to the same principles, so even though the creatures look different, the main features will be the same. But, as a Blender user, I understand the difficulties in making it seem like a whole unique universe.
Hmm, I’ll see what I’ll do. My little brother wants it so bad though
I don´t trust any previews or 15h played reports anymore. I waited for the game, i bought it, and i enjoy it.
Granted, the first 4 phases are over pretty quick if you are an adult but you will enjoy the galaxy phase.
For children its vice versa.
As for the securom stuff… you can play the game without the DVD. The game is protected via online activiation. Drastic measure but every second kid nowaday steals a piece of software.
The animations are a compromise between performance and accuracy. The game has really really low system requirements and runs just fine and still looks cute.
The fact that the client randomly downloads stuff other ppl created to populate the universe makes it fun to explore.
At first i too thought… WTF? one day and in phase 5 already? but there the fun starts… the missions are mostly the same… but its fun to mess around and unlock new achievements or skills…
Besides “over-hyped” the dev´s officially announced that the players should not expect too much and they are aware of the hype and dont want it.
However my resumé after 4 days is:
It was a risk buy, but was worth the money IMO
The game is fun if you like it… sounds strange, but its strongly a matter of taste… there is no “not so bad” for this game… either you totally like it or you hate it.
A downside surely is EA. they will milk the cow… Spore - New underpants, Spore - Ikea Planets…
I say you can´t rely on tests for this one. you got to try it your own. at least thats what i did. but i am weired ^^
I haven´t found any major bugs yet, the game runs rather solid compared with all other released games this year… mine crashed 2 times yet after hours of play… so its fine with me.
The game is just harmonious… the startrek, hichhikers guide attitudes, concept, skills, the ideas, the simplicity of managing your colonies and the easy handling of the resources…
In my opinion the dev´s did hell of a job, if you like it or not is up to you.
In a century where you use pointers, stack’n’heap and can compile with warnings and software is too complex to test out all possible combinations they will crash.
I can live with a game crashin after several hours of play (mostly due to memory managment) rather than with a game that has been ripped of 50% of its content or is as buggy as hell so its close to being unplayable.
(hellgate london, WoW, Warhammer online, Age of Conan, Gothic3 to name some games with massive content loss or being close to unplayable on release)
And its just great in the galaxy phase to fool around with other planets… removing the atmosphere from enemy planets, placing monolits on planets with species in the tribal phase, obduct citizen and set them free on a lonely T3 planet or make a peaceful planet and unleash a carnivore plague on it… its also fun to deceide that your neighbouring system now deserves a minimum of 10 chocolate rivers on their planet ^^
I think i stop galaxy phase once i have unlocked all tools and achievements… and then start over.
Besides, some of the ditched features are already in the talk of being re-implemented… like fur and underwater civilizations… The game offers endelss expansion possibillities… and an endless stream of pocketmoney from poor kids to EA ^^
For those who are intrested in the game dynamics and the creation process the developers hosted some of their tools for free download (as long as you accept the EA policy lol)
