“What is spore?” Spore is a game where the user controls species all throughout their evolution from the cell stage to the space stage. There are a total of 5 stages of evolution: cell stage, creature stage, tribal stage, civilization stage, and space stage.

This game gets interesting when almost everything the user plays with, creatures, tanks, spaceships, etc., is all user created. Even the planets can be edited to the player’s satisfaction. If you don’t feel creative, or are short on time, the Sporepedia has millions of user creations to use. Spore’s slogan “How will you create the universe?” is truly embedded into this game.

When I read all the hype about Spore I was giddy to try the game. After playing it for over a week and a half, I have an entirely different feeling. I feel like each of the five stages was like a mini game that you shouldn’t have spent more than an hour or two on. There was simply not enough content in the game. While each stage had strengths and weaknesses, the overall the game was only average at best.

Cell Stage: In this stage, you need to eat in order to advance up the food chain, and food comes in little round balls or cells. Some reviewers said this stage is like Pacman, and I couldn’t agree more. However, this version of Pacman comes complete with spikes and poison. Attacking cells bigger than you and fighting off carnivorous pests provides a challenge, unlike the most of the game. Dying was more common than in other stages. The placement of the parts in this stage actually mattered, which made it interesting. This stage is pretty fun, but incredibly short. Still, if the rest of the game could be like this, I would have been overjoyed.

Creature Phase: This phase is like a RPG (role-playing game). A player can socialize with or exterminate his fellow creatures. The game environment is awesome, but there are only a few different abilities. I found hunting creatures fun because it was a challenge trying to eradicate entire packs of creatures. Another aspect that I really enjoyed during this phase was the diversity of all of the creations I came across.

Tribal Stage: After the creature stage, you are given control of several species. In this stage, food is a resource that needs to be harvested. The player needs to conquer or befriend five different tribes. This stage can be difficult; at some points you will have multiple tribes attacking you. However, because of the lack of diversity in game play options, it’s still not all that great.

Civilization Stage: This stage can be difficult, but it’s still fun. There are three different ways you can take over the world. Sporebucks and spice are the two elements necessary to accomplish this goal. When you’re a military nation, it’s not really that hard. Spamming tanks and aircraft will simply overwhelm your enemies. A trader nation can be friends with everyone and take over the world by buying everything. When I played as a trader, it was pretty awesome, but too easy. Religion can also be a route to world domination. Again, there was little strategy in this stage, just like the tribal stage.

Space Stage: This stage gave me some mixed feelings. I liked the dogfights with other UFO’s, but after getting the best upgrades, it was too easy. I haven’t quite gotten to the center of the galaxy, which is the objective. The reason is that I have been bouncing around the rest of galaxy dealing with other problems. There are two problems: pirates or invaders, and ecodisasters. Both happen often and are a pain when I’m halfway across the galaxy trying to obliterate some hapless people. It really detracts from this stage because whenever I want to go and play around, my homeworld calls me and begs for help. The space stage is never ending. After a while, I just wanted to stop.

So, after a week of play, I have to say that Spore has given me mixed emotions. The idea of creating everything really appealed to me, and it’s one of the reasons many people got this game. I really enjoyed designing behemoths and battleships.

While the game creation tools are extremely adaptable, the game itself is not. At a certain point, most of the parts that you add on to a creature or vehicle are simply superficial. There is no strategy to adding parts, making everything generic. In the cell stage, I had lots of fun because I was impaling any cell that crossed me with a few sprinklings of spikes on my cell. But after the cell stage, it really doesn’t matter how many spikes you have or where they are. In addition, the lack of real game play is frustrating. I’ve lost almost all interest in the various stages of the game besides cell and creature stages because the game’s AI (Artificial intelligence) isn’t hard enough, and the game becomes too simple.

I’d recommend this game to people who think they would enjoy the creation aspect. Those people would be extremely happy with this game. If I am still playing Spore in a year, I would be using the creation tools rather than the game stages. However, those who like strategy and action in their video games shouldn’t get this one. It’s really only a shell of what it could have been.