Spore: the lost opportunity

I bought Spore. Despite the fact that is has DRM in it. Despite the fact that I usually wait for reviews before buying anything. I got exited. And I didn't just buy the game, I bought the "galactic edition" with all the bells and whittles...

What a disappointment. I somehow feel this game had so much potential, yet was somehow redesigned from scratch several times and then rush to market. The game try to be 5 games, yet fails in everyone of them. The more "polished" and incredible part of the game, is the designer. The rest, in my opinion, is an environment to try-out your creature, get bored, go back to the creature designer and do it again. Repeat ad nauseum.

But all is not lost for Maxis / EA. They obviously spent a lot of time on the editor and the creatures themselves. A lot of people have bought the game or just the creature creator. They "seeded" the spore-o-pedia database with a lot of creatures, vehicles, buildings,and spaceships from all the players. A MASSIVE amount of content.

I think the analogy with UT2003/ UT2004 is the best example of was I'm trying to get at. UT2003 was more a tech demo trying to sell the engine behind it. UT2004 had the same engine, yet was much more popular and more polished . Now place Spore in the place of UT2003. Most of what Spore need to be a good game is already there: it just need more polish... and, maybe a complete redesign of every phase...

For a complete (and good) review, see the Zero Punctuation one

At least the National Geographic documentary that came with the Galactic edition was entertaining...

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