Spore, by Electronic Arts
Rated E10+ for animated blood, comic mischief, and fantasy violence.
Genre: simulation/strategy/action.
Release: 09/07/08
Imagine a game in which you could manipulate every aspect of life, from the tiniest cell to a space-faring species, all in a few dozen hours. Spore allows you to do that. You begin as said Cell (everything that you control in the game can be created by you or downloaded from the Internet, and the cell is no exception), riding on the back of a comet as it splashes into the primordial ooze of a nascent planet. From there you devour the primal essence of meat and/or plant material, depending on your chosen mouth, which will determine whether you are a carnivore, herbivore or omnivore. After you are a big enough cell, you proceed to eat other cells, and avoid ones that are much larger than you, until you grow so big that you evolve into a Creature.
In the Creature stage, you either befriend through socialization or kill the species you meet, using a creature you design to your specifications with parts you either inherit from being a cell, or that you find out in the field. In this way, by collecting DNA, your rudimentary brain will grow until it becomes developed enough that you can unite all members of your species into Tribes.
In the Tribe phase, you work to unite each of the tribes of your species by either socializing with them, buying them out using your new economy, or simply killing them. (By the way, how you handle each preceding phase will determine how you must handle each proceeding phase, the most basic example of this being which mouth you selected in the cell stage determining your diet. Other decisions you make in each phase will carry forward to the next one in terms of abilities or traits.) Coalesce each of your tribes in your chosen manner to form a Civilization.
In this Civilization stage, you and many other civilizations made up of coalesced tribes from around the world must compete to create a one-world government. This can, again dictated by your actions in previous phases, be accomplished through military, religious, or economic means. Once you’ve done this, each of your civilization will each unite and be a great space-faring empire.
In this, the Space phase, there is no end. You may explore to your heart’s content, but there is an overarching storyline regarding a machine race known as the Grox, which guards a specific point at the center of the universe. During that, you must trade with your fellow empires, establish trade routes, annihilate those empires that are naturally hostile to you, and upgrade your ships to the maximum level possible.
Overall, Spore is an epic game. Many facets of the game have been simplified for any level of player, but that doesn’t hurt the game. The graphics are top-notch, with textures and sound being created procedurally, meaning your actions and decisions determine what music you hear, and textures adjust dynamically to the types of creatures or other constructs you create. The result is a game that is new every time you play.
I give an automatic 10 to all categories.
