Spore
September 8,2008 - The caveat – the warning that must be heeded by all potential Spore owners – is that Spore is not your classic strategy game. It’s a mistake many might make, but shouldn’t. It is – as are all of Will Wright’s games before it – a simulation; a “likeness” of evolution, but not a complete recreation.

It is vast, expansive, and brilliant, but not terribly deep for seasoned strategy game enthusiasts. It can be fast paced and challenging, but not overwhelming for any gamer; with “accessibility,” the mantra of modern game design, obviously being one of its core philosophies. And yes, it is innovative, but in more discreet ways than you would think from a game that takes you from a single-celled organism to a galactic superpower.

Spore is the “impossible” game, one that had to be balanced with such care as to not be so overly complex as to steamroll fun in favor of depth. By the same token, it also couldn’t be so basic that it wouldn’t live up to the promise of its premise: evolving a species from its simplest form to its most advanced.

What we have in Spore is an incredibly fun game that allows you to see the sheer growth of your species in an awe-inspiring way while at the same time unburdening a lot of the tedious legwork it could have required in order to get out of your way and let you just play. Its emphasis is on relationship building and creation, and the idea of a “spore” – a reproductive body of an organism – is evident everywhere. You are a creation that, in turn, creates, creates, and creates a bit more.

One thing can be said before getting into the nitty gritty details: buy Spore (and this is coming from someone who hated Will Wright’s arguably most famous work, The Sims, with a burning passion.)

For the uninitiated few, Spore takes you through the entire evolutionary process of a species from primordial soup to the space age. There are five stages in all: the cell stage, the creature stage, the tribal stage, the civilization stage, and the space age. Each are, in many ways, their own self-contained games all tied together by a common ancestry dating back to the cell stage.

The game eases you into it all with the very basics in the cell and creature stages. In these, it’s all very much about action; from chomping on bits of meat floating around, attacking other cells, or to pouncing on unsuspecting creatures it’s all a case of “kill or be killed.” It’s very much a lawless land with few consequences and zero strategy, and it’s easy to become an aggressor because with so few benefits to playing nice with anyone from the start.

That’s the way Spore starts out. You fight things, eat things, and grow. Your biological evolution takes place mostly in the first two stages where you decide how many legs you’ll have, how large you’ll be, and so on. It’s also important to note that your behavior will guide your decisions in building your species. If you’re aggressive, you’ll be looking to make yourself larger, imposing, and with plenty of claws and tusks to make short work of any other species who may cross your path. If you’re more peaceful, you’ll look for speed and defense with poison shooting pods and such.

Once you pass those stages, the game takes a 180-degree turn and you stop “evolving” in the traditional sense. At first, it’s a bit jarring that you’re no longer really growing from a physical standpoint, but then you realize how, perhaps unintentionally, Spore reflects the “evolution” of man. The human species hasn’t changed much from a physical standpoint in millennia, and the reason, as perfectly reflected in the game, is that once physical weapons and more advanced technologies enter the fold, reliance on your physical self is lessened. You no longer have to be faster or stronger, because cars, boats, planes, and spaceships transport you. You no longer need 6 inch blades on your fingers because you have spears, guns, and missiles.

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