Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #86 in Computer & Video Games
• Brand: Electronic Arts
• Released on: 2008-09-05
• Platforms: Windows XP, Windows Vista

Amazon.co.uk Preview
From the creator of The Sims comes the most ambitious video game ever made: here you don’t just control a single family or city but control an entire species from a single cell organism to a galactic conqueror. As impossibly complex as that might sound, the most impressive thing about Spore is just how accessible and fun it all is. The game is split into six evolutionary phases, starting with almost action-style gameplay at the microscopic level. From there you move to the creature phase on dry land, before going on to the tribal phase and the beginnings of society and technology. From there it’s onto the city phase, which plays a bit like SimCity, and from there to the Civilisation phase which plays something like, you guessed it, Civilization. The final phase takes part in outer space where by hook or by crock your species must reign triumphant.

Each phase has its own editing tools associated with it for things like vehicles and buildings. By far the most fun though is the creature tool, which allows you to create your own fully animated lifeform from scratch using a huge range of limbs, facial features and colourings. What’s also interesting is that the other planets in the galaxy aren’t all pre-populated by the game. Instead, by connecting online you can upload your races, and download those from other people, to fill the galaxy with civilizations from other players around the world. Any one of the six phases would normally be enough for any one game on its own, but this looks like it’s going to turn out to be the world’s first everything simulator.
HARRISON DENT

Manufacturer's Description
The next evolution in gaming is upon us. From the mind of Will Wright, the creator of The Sims, comes SPORE, an epic journey that takes you from the origin and evolution of life through the development of civilization and technology and eventually all the way into the deepest reaches of outer space.

Begin your odyssey at the dawn of life as a simple microbe just trying to survive, then use the fun, intuitive Editors to evolve the creature from its microscopic origins into an intelligent, tool-using race. Guide your species as it builds (and the player designs) villages, buildings, cities, and vehicles. Along the way to becoming a global civilization you can choose whether to hunt or forage, attack or trade, be nice or play rough!

All the action takes place in a huge, lush world populated with creatures evolved by other players and shared over SPORE's central servers. When it's ready, your one-time pond scum launches into space in its UFO on a grand voyage of discovery, planet forming, or destruct-ion! As you explore and play in this limitless universe of unique worlds, your personal Sporepedia tracks all the creatures you've met and places you've visited.

Customer Reviews

Beware if you think you can buy this game and sell it if you don't like it (which you won't) - you can't!
This game is dreadful - My 6 year old's Barbie games have more depth and better graphics. To add insult to injury I tried to sell my copy on Ebay and have just had to refund the purchaser because they can't re-register the game even though it's a legitimate copy. Once the game has been registered once, EA lock those registration details to the game code and refuse to allow any changes. The only way anyone else can play the game is if you give them your registration details including email, password etc. EA certainly won't be getting any more of my money.

All the grind of a MMORPG without the social reward or variety.
This was one of the most hyped games for about the past 3 years. Great things were made of the procedurally generated graphics and creature customisation. If what you want are toys that let you build the freaky alien of your choice I can recommend no better solution.

Unfortunately, I was expecting a *game* and what game there is in this product is seriously flawed. Overall the game is mind-numbingly repetetive. The cell stage is well executed and fun. You rapidly form an attachment to your blob of goo and rejoice as he eats things and grows strong. Exactly where his spikes are is something you get excited about as this can make all the difference to fending off other blobs or being lunch.
Unfortunately, the game doesn't get much more complicated. The creature stage is a dumbed down 3rd person action-adventure affair with your attributes determined by the parts on your creature. The interest is damaged as you are forced to change parts for better ones regardless of the aesthetics. There is little variation - you either kill or befriend other species until you suddely go tribal.
The tribal stage and civilisation stages are like dumbed down RTS games with few units (one land, one sea, one air) in the civilisation stage and little thought required. You can trade people to death (buy them), preach at them until they convert to your religion or attack them until you win. The latter two options are near identical.
Once you have your planet under control you reach the space stage. This is a little more interesting but not much. Your ship appears to contain the only brain in the galaxy. You can set up trade routes but they function only as a trojan horse to let you buy the other party's planet eventually. To actually get money you have to cart stuff round yourself or do missions. The missions are basic (fetch 3 of these, kill 5 of those) and ultimately dull. You get attacked on a semi-regular basis and have to hurtle back home to defend your planet (annoying). The diplomacy is feeble.

Apparently the 'story' element involving the Grox (baddies) is worth following and getting to the end is a big surprise and rewards the effort. I no longer care.

The final kick in the teeth comes now when they release details of the expansions which contain features that were announced for the main game months before release but apparently cut so they could sell the expansions. Imagine how impressed I am by this.

Oh, and the DRM policy sucks, but if this were actually a good game I would ignore it as a downside. As it is there is very little chance I will want to reinstall it ever anyway.

SPORE SPORE SPORE!
This game is like freaking AMAZING!
i'm having so much fun.
firstly you start at Cell stage...and i was actually scaried...but the graphis are so brilliant! and then once you produce a brain you can then go onto Creature stage....so amazing...its really a good way of understanding evolution..its so cool! Anyway...depending on what you done at each stage decides what sort of creature you are on the other stages...once you;ve completed creature stage by either making friends enemies, ruling the world..you then go to tribal stage where you live and rule all the tribes...once you;ve done that you go onto civilisation stage where other civilations of your creature become your enemies or friends and once you have ruled the world by converting, battling etc you go to SPACE STAGE. which is AMAZING GOOD. graphics again are great and your within the galaxy...yay!
you basically makes friends or you attack star system whilst trying to help your allies star system and build your economy by selling spice, completing missons and so forth...i've actually gone to the centre of the galaxy...and i beleive the object is to get as far in the galaxy as possibly...whilst battling and making friends....
IT REALLY GOOD FUN!
I've feel like i've achieved so much with my creatures...(who i named after my sister. hehe)and you can be really creative and make any creature you want...making them look cute, or tough...and there is SO much to explore.
so buy it and try it :D