Tribal, Civilization and Beyond

Up until the Tribal stage I felt really good about Spore. Sure, it felt very casual and lightweight, but there was still some substance with the promise of more substance the deeper I got into the game. The Tribal stage is where the cracks in the armor begin to show. Moving from the discovery and gathering of an MMO to resource collecting and base-building of an RTS, the Tribal stage takes the creature into the era of tools, clothing and housing. Once again, options for social interaction or combat are available allowing you to impress the other budding tribal cultures through music and gifts or dominate them through aggression.

A music mini-game, much like the social interaction from the Creature stage, is all there is to socialization while the combat is as easy as "get weapons and attack in numbers." Perhaps Spore is trying to say something about the simplicity of tribal warfare but more likely it's designed to cater to the casual gamer who may not be all that familiar with RTS conventions. Unfortunately for those of us who are RTS veterans, this gameplay leaves something to be desired. Like the Creature stage before it, the Tribal stage borrows just enough from an established game genre to function but not enough to be interesting. After destroying or befriending all the other tribes, your species becomes the dominant force on the planet and can build a civilization.

If the Tribal stage is where the cracks are first visible then the Civilization stage is where they widen. It starts off strong with the creation of buildings and a vehicle in the Creator. And if you're like me you'll painstakingly craft some kind of towering edifice and sleek super car, taking care to control every exacting detail. It's satisfying to view a finished creation in the edit window but as soon as you zoom in to see it in game, all that satisfaction disappears. In the Civilization and Space stages everything gets skinned with a low-resolution texture once it gets into the game. Not only do your creations get a low-res paint job, the design of the vehicles is purely aesthetic. Adding certain parts will increase health, speed or attack power but no matter what weapons are placed on the vehicle, they will all have the same, uninteresting attack animation. A cube with no wheels and smaller guns will fire exactly the same as a homemade Superdestructo Deathcar. It takes some of the fun out of creating vehicles and using them in game.

In the Civilization stage the goals are very similar to those of the Tribal stage: domination or friendship with all the other civilizations on the planet. These goals can be achieved by military, economic or religious means but the superior numbers tactic will always work. Create a bunch of vehicles and attack a city. Repeat. For a game imitating RTS gameplay there is very little "S" here. After planetary dominion is established, it's time to head to the stars in the Space stage. And here is where the real trouble begins.

Compared to the rest of the game, the Space stage is incredibly vast and extremely complicated. Spore does a great job of easing you into it through directed quests but it can still be a bit overwhelming. Even if you've played an utterly destructive and aggressive race through the entire game, you'll find diplomacy forced on you in the Space stage. After creating a space ship you're flung into the outer-reaches of space to interact with other races. The Space stage involves tasks like terraforming planets, creating food webs, transplanting species, negotiating trade routes, scanning life forms, harvesting spice, establishing colonies, exploring black holes, upgrading the space ship, playing the economy and the occasional spat with an unfriendly race if you happen to end up at war; which you will through no fault of your own.

It sounds like a great space game; only Spore's Space stage plays entirely from a single spacecraft. None of the menial tasks can be automated to make time for the more interesting ones. Being forced to make money by manually flying to every colony, picking up spice then flying it all over the universe in search of a good price is okay the first time but this one-task-of-many in the Space stage takes up way too much time. I'd be okay with doing the first run to establish a trade route that is then automated, depositing the proceeds directly into my account, but doing it every time is a repetitive chore and not fun.

NEXT PAGE: More Space Stage Woes and the Final Score

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