Spore

Here is another project from EA to you. But while the genre of Dead Space can be ascertained instantly, Spore is not so easily classified. We guess it is a kind of a global strategy or a god simulator. The latter term is often used to refer to games like Civilization but Spore is more far-reaching. The civilized phase takes only about one half of the game whereas the other half is a simulator of evolution that begins with a unicellular form of life accidentally brought to the planet by a meteorite.

The unicellular phase is a funny two-dimensional arcade in which you have to fight for survival with other unicellular organisms inhabiting the prehistoric ocean. The winning strategy is determined by the choice of the nutrition method. If you go the carnivorous way, you have to hunt various unicellular creatures of the “prehistoric soup,” increasing the attacking potential of your bacterium by digesting pieces of DNA. Otherwise the hunter can easily find itself to be the victim. If you choose the herbivorous way, the DNA fragments you get should be invested into increasing your speed, maneuverability and defensive means to avoid any monsters who might want to eat you. If you are lucky enough, you can even acquire an omnivorous digestive organ to become a truly universal creature.

Once you get to a requisite amount of DNA, you can get legs and move on to the next level of evolution, i.e. become a land creature. It is at that moment that one of the longest and interesting parts of Spore begins. Although the point remains the same, the gameplay gets more variegated. The world is three-dimensional now, and you can become friends with other species. The amount of available DNA “bricks” is so huge that you can realize almost any possible fantasy about an ideal creature – you only have to accumulate enough of the building blocks. The size of the creature’s brain is increasing as its evolution goes on and this phase ends in your creature becoming intelligent which is indicated by a funny scene alluding to the well-known episode with the apes from Kubrick’s A Space Odyssey 2001.

The civilization phase consists of two steps: village/tribe and town-based. Both feature RTS-like gameplay. Both steps offer two main ways to victory: a peaceful one and a war. To win peacefully, you must conclude as many unions with your neighbors as possible. Or you can win by conquering them. The village-based step is quite interesting but the town-based step is rather too simple, being even less exciting than the first RTS on the PC, the legendary Dune 2. We guess it is the weakest part of the game, even though it offers such opportunities as designing machines and buildings from scratch.

In the final phase of Spore the civilization goes out into space. Unfortunately, the most beautiful part also has the simplest gameplay. You have only one spaceship and your gameplay boils down to roaming the vast galaxy inhabited by numerous civilizations. The only entertainment options you have are terramorfing or destroying planets depending on your mood and current mission.

The game uses several graphics engines depending on the phase you play in. As becomes such an ambitious project, every phase is a treat to the eye, even though the visuals may look simple sometimes. Spore has a frame rate limiter fixed at 30fps. Despite this fact, the test results may be interesting, at least for owners of mainstream and inexpensive graphics cards.