SPORE™ Collection

I have been playing spore for a long while, but it was only now when I really got back into it and tried it on GOG. Definitely would recommend buying it here over Steam! However, I would say that this game isn't for everyone. I have a little summary on the stages below if you wish to read and see if it's a good game for you: The game in itself isn't made for everyone, but it can be fun if you try out new things! Hard mode can be kind of rediculous with everything they toss at you but that at least follows the concept of that mode...but it's not so great when you are starting the first stage and can't find food before you are swarmed by a whole lot of larger, carnivorous cells that can two-shot you. The creature stage is what I personally argue is the best and most iconic for the game. You can make some pretty neat creatures, or horrifying abominations of nature! It's incredibly fun finding those new parts to fully evolve into the best creature for the run you are trying to pull off. No real complaints aside from migration sometimes being a pain if you have hostile creatures down most of the route to the new nest. Tribal is mostly you either demolishing everyone or throwing gift baskets at everyone in the area until you can exploit enough food to last you the entire stage. Now, I would say from the Tribal stage to the Space Exploration stage is where you either love the game or hate it. You can no longer evolve, and you have to do some quick actions or you'll pretty much be soft-locked in the civilization stage if you act too slow and another nation takes the whole map. And Space?...I am not quite sure about it personally, not my cup of tea. But, if you enjoy exploration and colonization of other planets and a bit of micro-managing? Go for it! There's likely more I haven't seen about it. Overall, Spore for me would be a solid 4 Stars. You can play it differently and try different things, so I would say it's worth the money if that's what you enjoy doing.

Spore is an admirable proof of concept for implementing the idea of evolution across our reachable universe into a game. The gameplay is discretized into several stages, beginning with the player's species as a wiggling protoplasm and ending with its galaxy-wide omnipotence. To be succinct, the 'cell' stage is an enjoyable survival mini-game, the 'creature' stage is a boring scavenger hunt, the 'tribal' stage is an oversimplified strategy game, the 'civilization' stage is a less overly-simplified strategy game, and the 'space' stage is a relatively comprehensive space simulation. There is also the 'adventures' add-on, which is an underwhelming attempt to incorporate role-playing elements to the space stage. Given this wide of a scope, the game sadly does not deliver a consistently entertaining experience. However, Spore does provide an interesting challenge to the player by granting them several options to survive and thrive in the ever-changing environment. Nearly all actions have consequence, which sets up the space stage rather well. The fact that decisions made as a single cell impact the species' subsequent galactic conquest is remarkable and unique to the game. The graphics maintain a cohesive sense of well-polished quirkiness. The generative aspect of its art assets, the many model creation systems, and player-made content sharing features remain innovative to this day. Spore's music is wonderful, relaxing, and very on-theme as it has its own generative nature. It often provokes the right feelings of exploration, discovery, and adaptation throughout the game. The narrative provides a somewhat educational tale of how science has interpreted our creation and potential future, with an abundance of simplifications and science-fiction tropes thrown in. While the experience is not quite greater than the sum of its parts, Spore is recommended to anyone who wants to have some fun playing with the basic notions of evolutionary biology and space simulation.

A nice game. Still stands unparalleled even 10 years after its launch. Can become a bit boring if you find little or zero fun in customization. Personally, I am glad for having bought it in a discount sale after many years of waiting.

The hype for this game was unreal, the only game in recent memory that reminds me of it is perhaps No Man's Sky. A lot of similarities between the two actually. Impressive tech running under the hood but little else. Bad and misleading marketing and the showing of a game that was nothing like what we actually got. Spore is a tedious and repetitive string of shallow mini-games from start to finish, nothing more. While it is indeed a novel idea and the creation tools were quite advanced for the time (eh, still are) there's no substance behind anything. The game comes across as more of a tech demo in places than an actual playable game. Spore had the potential to be one of gaming's greats, instead it stands as an embarrassing reminder of what happens when a publisher oversteps their bounds and actively screws with game development. No, Spore isn't great and even at a 12$ price tag it's still barely worth a play-through.

It is awesome because of the customization and inovation. You develop the cell, the creature, the tribe, the civilization and the vehicles. I am to see a game so inovative. Be warned, the gameplay may be not the best part of the game, but I played it a lot and restarted 3 times, so it was a masterpiece on my opinion. I think it is hard to accompany the customization in game mechanics, and they did a great work, as the customization is absurd and would be hard to follow with a exponencial possibilities opening.