SPORE™ Collection

I bought this on disk when it came out, it was very buggy, threw a bunch of Malware on your PC, and wasn't very satisfying. It was fun for a few plays, then you end up losing interest. Now the DRM is probably removed, as it's on GoG, but purchasing it again just doesn't seem worthwhile, and i wouldn't recommend anybody else to either, although there aren't really many similar games to this, it just doesn't do it well enough to be worth your time. As they once said a long time ago, Avoid the Noid.

I originally bought this game in a store, a DVD and documentation on paper in a real box! Cost an arm and a leg to buy, but it seemed such a good game. Stage 1 - the 2D fase in which you're a simple cell organism eating the smaller ones to gain DNA points, while avoiding being eaten by the larger ones. This stage was enjoyable, but too short. Stage 2 - creature stage. Essentially a 3D version of stage one where you left the primordial soup, and now roam the land with similar goals. This stage was the most fun, but much too short! Stage 3 - Sentience. Getting killed by Legendary monsters that other players' creatures worship. These monsters are 20 times the normally attainable height, and kill you by simply stepping on you, even accidentally. The worst is it, when your creatures get killed over and over by the same Legendary, which was based on one of your OWN creations. I've never seen stage 4 and 5, because after seeing six or seven of my own worlds fall victim to the same Legendary monster every time, I gave up, uninstalled the game, and gave the box to a friend of mine, who never even tried it. Had there not been Legendaries, or had there been an option to disable them, or even to play completely WITHOUT the need to be online, things might have been different. Now I'll just consider it a loss. I'm not wasting money on it ever again.

Spore had much hype leading up to its release. It was touted as being a masterpiece from designer Will Wright (of SimCity and Maxis fame) in which you could guide the evolution of a species. What we got was 5 shallow mini-games stuck end to end. The 1st has you controlling a creature, strictly in 2D. You swim around, eat food, and avoid other bigger creatures. You collect "DNA points" in some form which then allows you to evolve parts onto your creature. Spikes, teeth, mouths, various locomotion parts. No real depth the evolution. It was somewhat like character customisation in any RPG When you finally leave the primordial ooze you enter the 2nd part of the game where you fight to become the dominant form of life on the planet. You romp about a small continent in search of yet more body parts and food, either vegetarian or carnivorous. This time in more of a 3D world with different but still shallow action. Transitioning to the 3rd and you leave control over a single character and now control a tribe of your finalised creatures. Now you must make a civilization. Gameplay now changes to be more RTS like. You still gather food and try to fight other tribes of your creatures to become dominant on your continent. When you do that you move to the 4th stage. You civilization is now in the modern era. You get to design a few buildings, using much the same designer as you did for the creatures. You fight other "countries" to gain control over the planet. When you've done that I've heard you get to fly about in space. That would be the 5th stage. I never bothered to make it that far. I didn't want to. Allegedly you could fly around to other planets which were going to be populated by the creations of other people. No, not multiplayer just seeing what content they had made for EA to put in its game. Now that brings me to the Creature Creator. That was the best bit making various Eldritch Abominations (and cock monsters). You would never be able to make anything like those in game because you could never have enough "DNA points" to buy all those appendages.