Alright, after hearing what everyone has been complaining about with the game Spore, and finding out that the creature creator actualy runs on my system, I decided to try the game out myself. No, I didnt buy it, I got a torrent. Figured if I bought it and for some reason it didnt run, I'd be out the $50+ so I'd better spend the couple hours downloading. But anyway.

Firstly, most of what everyone has been complaining about is right. Mostly. Spore is a game that runs with a good idea that few other games have tried. Unfortunatly Maxis didnt do so well in actualy putting it together. As for apperance, it's actualy pretty good. It's not mind-blowing graphics (atleast not on my system) but they're still pretty good for running on pretty much any system. Spore seems as if they took the play styles form alot of their other games and kinda mushed them together. And while that may seem fun, it means that there's no single learning curve that carries you through the whole game. Every time you move on to the next stage, you're starting from scratch all over again. So it's a case of one step forward, two steps back.

This also means that all the commands and controls you learned are all useless once you move to the next stage. The interface you learned in creature is useless in tribal, and the same for tribal to civilized. If the transition was more gradual, and not such a total, abrupt change, then it probably would or worked out better, and make for a longer lasting game.

As for space, it's way too complex. The only thing you learned from civilization that helps you atall is how to arrange buildings in colonies and to set up trade routes whenever possible. While the scope of the space stage can be overwhelming, it's also where the fun comes in for it. There's so much to do and so many things you can mess around with, you can generaly find something you like. Unfortunatly with so much to do, that also means you get called on way too often. For instance, you're on a planet makeing a smiley face out of the land cause you can, and setting up your colonies for the eyes, when you get an alert that someone is attacking another one of your colonies. Ok, so you go to take care of that. Once that's done before you can get back to your terraforming, you get another alert that there's a virus spreading on another one of your wolds. And on your way to try to take care of that, you get yet another alert that someone is attacking one of your allie's worlds. Unless you set up alliances with everyone or destroy everything you come across, you end up running around like a chicken with it's head cut off. It gets realy frustrateing. The more planets you have, the more you get called on, and you start to wonder why you're the only ship in your whole empire that can deal with these things.

Now, I have to say, dispite all this it is a fun game. The most fun I have is in the creature and tribal phases. And, ofcorse, there's the creature creator, which is the biggest draw for any of this. Unfortunatly the way you build your creatures dont have much effect on the game past the creature phase, and only a small effect in the tribal phase. You can still have fun designing vehicles in the civilization phase, but unfortunatly the way you build your space ship has no effect on it's abilities.

The hints the game give syou from time to time are the bare minimum you need to play, so you have to read into alot of things and try things out. Alot of people have complained about not being told how to do certian things, and this is a problem through alot of the game. You have to keep trying diffirent things to learn how it all works, and some of it doesnt seem to work much atall. I'd still recomend it if you want something that'll be a distraction, but my advice is to wait a few months for the price to come down. To me, this is more of a $20 game, rather than a $50 game. Ofcorse, I'd give what's left of my soul if someone can tell me how to make colonies with sea ports >.<