Due to EB stores around Australia being given incomplete information (no street date from EA), myself and a number of other Spore enthusiasts I know got very little sleep last night while enjoying this game. My boss is very lucky I didn't call in sick this morning, although I did bring the manual in with me to read if I get the chance. :D

First impressions:


In-game movies look very good! All done in-engine, and seem to run fast and smooth
I love the sense of scale and changing scales when an amoeba. Also love that tidal forces become more of an issue as you scale up. Also love that the food is a little fractal - you nibble the edges of food you can devour as a larger creature
Feeding frenzies surprised me - multiple predators taking down herds of herbivores, and groups of herbivores grazing on larger food pieces
Moments of panic being chased by giant carnivores caused me to install a defensive electric shot organ at the back of my creature - very effective!
I thought I would have some trouble maintaining a consistent 'feel' to my creature as he grew (I tend to min-max a little) but I found that I had an attachment/affinity for the little guy so he grew in natural progressions while keeping the same overall feel
At no stage of the game did I find myself running short of DNA/SporeBucks to perform the customisations I wanted, nor did I hit the complexity cap although my creature was fairly conservative
The ability to use a randomly-generated name for any creature/vehicle/building is a godsend when your attention is on some other part of the game
A pack can be very useful, however I had to dump a couple of creatures as they didn't have interactions I needed to impress other creatures in order to form alliances
Creatures I was trying to impress scattered, and when I looked up an alien spaceship was swooping around abducting things - I took lots of photos :D
It took me a while to figure out exactly how the band works (in tribal phase) to play music, but after that I had fun with this feature!
When another tribe sends you a give, one of your creatures has to fetch it and put it in the food stash
You can domesticate multiple species (but only one of each), and they will lay eggs as a renewable resource
Mech legs on vehicles don't have quite the motion I was hoping for - it's too smooth
For some reason cockpits don't 'attach' to vehicle bodies - they remain independent when you move the body unlike other parts
All three city takeover options in the Civilisation phase are cool - I loved my aerial trade fleets!
It's nice to be able to use pre-made vehicles when you are in a hurry to finish the Civ phase to move onto space
The first few space missions are pretty cool, but by this stage I needed sleep!
It's nice that it lists a big chunk of the achievements that I haven't achieved, as it gives me something to work towards
I added a couple of people I know as buddies, and was able to auto-download all their creatures to populate my worlds
I did have some issues with logging on in-game, as well as when launching the game (running Vista 64), but I noticed similar launch issues with the Red Alert 3 Beta. Running in XP SP2 compatibility mode with Administrator privileges is a bit brute-force, but seemed to work the best


I can't think of anything more right now, but let me say the charm and humour of this game and its creatures has suckered me right in. Anyone else lucky enough to get their copy yet care to share some thoughts?

Sweet i was hoping other civs could be at a more advanced stage than you, I love it.

Sweet i was hoping other civs could be at a more advanced stage than you, I love it.

It's different in different phases. As an amoeba, you grow through different size stages with different size creatures in them, as well as small growth when you eat within each size stage. Creatures you encounter have slight size variations too. When you move to creature, there are nests of other creatures around as well (seemed to be between 5-10 creatures per nest). Some are inherently hostile, and some can be 'impressed' and allied. You get a DNA reward for allying or annihilating them. There are also 'epic' creatures (on my world it was a giant brain with 1,000hp, when my creatures had around 40!)

When you move to tribal, yours is the dominant species so all tribes are made up of your creature (just with different colours), and there are domesticable creatures (presumably the ones that didn't achieve sentience). There are epic creatures at this phase, and the civilisation phase too. Your tribe spreads across the globe, so all cities are also made up of your creature although they have different architecture and vehicles than you.

Oh, I thought that the tribal phase had multiple intelligent species.

Oh, I thought that the tribal phase had multiple intelligent species.

Wait, did it? Oh, you're right, it did! It's not until the Civ phase that your species dominates. Sorry, my bad! The hours, they ran together for me until early in the morning. :-P

Creatures I was trying to impress scattered, and when I looked up an alien spaceship was swooping around abducting things - I took lots of photos

So was this during your own space phase or earlier?

Stupid me I've only just found out the game has been here since Monday. Will have to get it tomorrow morning.

Nice post Ambler :)

Thanks for sharing! If you can post more, I would be grateful. Some have to wait until Friday, you know. ;)

And some until Sunday. :p

And some until Sunday. :p

Your kind don't matter. :p

But yeah, more cool Spore features plzkthxbai. ;)

Enough of your silly arrogance- he who laughs last laughs best, and I shall laugh most heartily as I open my copy of Spore much later than you. ;)

Enough of your silly arrogance- he who laughs last laughs best, and I shall laugh most heartily as I open my copy of Spore much later than you. ;)

Why? Because I have a two day head start over you? :cool:

But seriously, if it makes you feel better, I will post a review of the game if you would like, and maybe post pics etc. Just ask. :)

An AAR would be lovely. ;)

An AAR would be lovely. ;)

Am I correct in assuming that I can use the 'print screen' button to collect a lot of images in one go? I don't want to have to leave the game everytime I take an image! :p

I'm not sure, depends on your program.

Am I correct in assuming that I can use the 'print screen' button to collect a lot of images in one go? I don't want to have to leave the game everytime I take an image! :p

To do my screenshots I played in windowed mode (change to it in graphics settings) then used ALT+PRTSC and pasted in my image program. Easy. :)

Even easier if you use GIMP as you can just paste as new each time and rack up heaps of images ready to save out.

Creatures I was trying to impress scattered, and when I looked up an alien spaceship was swooping around abducting things - I took lots of photos

So was this during your own space phase or earlier?

This was during Creature phase - I was being scouted (and saw creatures being 'abducted' in front of my eyes).

Eurogamer (http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=229057) gave it a solid 9 out of 10.

Eurogamer (http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=229057) gave it a solid 9 out of 10.

Hell wow! I cant wait to play it, I can look at the box/CD :( new Pc on the way
4 days time....
Here is the link for another review also 9/10 (PDF)
http://www.xspore.com/news/646_first_review.html

w00t, I'll get Spore most likely tomorrow. :D

A couple of technical questions for you guys!

#1, What's the deal with this horrible Secu-ROM stuff? Any problems registering/activating the installation and all that? Could it be done easily enough with slow dial-up internet?

#2, How does the auto-downloading of content work? Would I need to be online all the time while I play, or just at the start of the game, or the new phases? And/or can you manually bulk-download stuff in one big session to use later? (that would be cool for me - no permanent connection here!)

(OK, that was technically six questions :) )

A couple of technical questions for you guys!

#1, What's the deal with this horrible Secu-ROM stuff? Any problems registering/activating the installation and all that? Could it be done easily enough with slow dial-up internet?

#2, How does the auto-downloading of content work? Would I need to be online all the time while I play, or just at the start of the game, or the new phases? And/or can you manually bulk-download stuff in one big session to use later? (that would be cool for me - no permanent connection here!)

(OK, that was technically six questions :) )


I have installed it 2x (2 different Computers) Some have had problems registering it E.g like this is not a valid copy message
I couldn't even log in to register it.
I don't know if this will affect and count to the 3 activation limit?

As I have to get a new pc to be able to play it. So that would be the 3rd time....
The auto downloading isn't too big Apparently, and is done fairly quickly they say.Creatures and content are 30k each, but there are already millions?
How many are needed to start off populating your Galaxy I don't know.

There's already heaps of content (Maxis content) included with Spore, so you don't actually need any downloadable content to fill your galaxy. However, if you ARE connected to the internet, it will slowly download content to fill those slots for you.

And I mean slowly. In 4 days, it's downloaded ~40 user made content.

I couldn't even log in to register it.

@SpurnSpore, that doesn't sound good :( I hope the server is just busy, or something. Do you have to re-install from the DVD every time you try, or can you go straight to the validation thing?

And I mean slowly. In 4 days, it's downloaded ~40 user made content.

Is there a way to download lots of stuff at once, like from specific users or something?

Yeah, becoming their buddy or subscribing to sporecasts dl's that content immediately.

Is there a way to download lots of stuff at once, like from specific users or something?

You can also download individual creatues from the Sporepedia :).
( which is what I do, I don´t want it to download automatically)

It would work straight from install, perhaps the EA servers are waiting until Sept 7 (official start date?)
I'm sorry I cannot know until I upgrade and be able to even to have the processor power to play it- graphics card as well.
It should install fine (even if you don't have the specs (took 30 mins install on mine)
So you will be fine if your PC has the capacity.
They say the install content download is barely noticeable, while you play and are connected online.

w00t, I'll get Spore most likely tomorrow. :D

Got it, installing.

I hate all you Europeans. Spore isn't released here until the 7th, and even then, I won't be able to get my hands on it until the 10th. Why must you make me so jealous?

Because we can. :smug:

The game arrived for me today. Just sat there as I got home. I was quite pleased. :)

I'm really, really hoping that my pre-order arrives on the 7th... I don't want to have to wait for 5-10 day shipping into Canada. :(

Thats what you get for living in the Yukon.

Try moving to a real city :p

First impression: Wow. This game is awesome.

Still in the Creature phase, it's fun, but Cell phase was fabulous. Though seeing a humongous flying creature with level 1000 has it's own charm, but Cell was very simple and fun.

@SuBi- As chance would have it, I'm attending an IB college on Vancouver Island right now, about an hour out of Victoria.

I hate all you Europeans. Spore isn't released here until the 7th, and even then, I won't be able to get my hands on it until the 10th. Why must you make me so jealous?

It makes a pleasant change :D

Only really played the cell stage in depth, which was good fun. There is a thrill of desperately fleeing from larger predators, then being able to attack them after evolving.

The cell phase is fantastic, as is the creature phase. Tribal and civilization phases are both somewhat dull (probably because I'm used to civ), haven't tried space yet.

Cell phase is my favourite so far as well :crazyeye:, followed by creature phase. Tribal and civ phases are a bit... underwhelming and I have not really tried out space phase, just flew around a bit - too busy starting one game after another :)!

I've played all the stages so far, and I'm quite pleased with the game. I'll give a rundown of my experiances...

Cell Phase - Although it doesn't appear to be much, it is strangely addictive and beautiful. I love the graphics in this stage: the moving water, the various colours of the cells and other objects floating about all create a fantastic looking play area. You start out as the most basic cell possible - that is you have a mouth, and something to swim with. If you chose a carnivore mouth, get attacking other cells! My first cell was a carnivore, and I found the 'spike' upgrades very useful, even helping me to kill a cell 10 times my size! Carnivores have to hunt for food, obviously, and this means endangering yourself fighting with other cells. A herbivore has it easier, as they only have to find plants to chomp on. When I replayed this phase as a herbivore, I added lots of swimming parts, to the point where I was eventually zooming through the ocean, gobbling up food before anyone else had a chance to notice!

Creature Phase - This phase is entered when the player's cell has been given a pair of legs. You amble up onto land, with a handful of creatures, and you take control of one of them. You start at your nest, where you can heal or mate to produce more generations of creatures. If you have collected enough DNA, you can evolve your species in weird and wonderful ways. The gameplay here is simple. Carnivores must ravage other nests and eat the fallen, herbivores must browse for food in bushes and trees. How one actally collects DNA is from other creatures. You can either befriend them, who can join into a pack with you and help with your later adventures, or fight them to the death. When you make a species extinct (after killing a set amount of the creature) or ally with them (After befriending a set amount of them) you gain DNA. As progress is made, more difficult creatures are encountered, requring help in the form of your pack to kill/ally. My carnivore quickly finished off the pathetic species around my first nest, but when around my later ones I was frequently challenged by more competant creatures.

Tribe Phase - This phase begins when your creatures evolution is complete. Your brain has become large enough for you to form a simple society and start doing some conquering! You start off with a tribe's hut and a small number of villagers. These can be given a variaty of tasks, such as hunting, foraging, fishing or fighting. Food is the main currency here, and it is vital you select some of your villagers to gather it as quick as possible. Your village can be outfitted with various buildings. The most useful, in my opinion, was available to me from the start and that was the stone hut, giving your creatures the ability to wield fearsome clubs. To get other huts (e.g. throwing spears, maracas or didgeridoos) you must ally or conquer another tribe to learn their secrets. It is fairly easy to destroy the first village, as you have been building for a while and then they appear, so a rush attack is easy to do. However, other tribes what appear are more powerful, and will require a bit more strategy to defeat. Sensing I couldn't fight everyone in the world, I bit the bullet and allied myself with another village, who then bestowed me with useful gifts of food. They also helped repel a raid or two off my own village. The tribal clothing editor is cute and gives some cool bonuses to your creatures fighting, gathering or social abilities, giving them the edge in these situations. Just to clarify as there seems to be a bit of confusion about, you are fighting different species than your own - in the Civilization Phase, your must fight your own creations.

Civilization Phase - In my opinion, the weakest of the five main stages. You begin with a simple city. This has a town hall and nothing else, until you start to build in to. You also start with one vehicle - invaluble for collecting 'spice geysors,' or Spore's equivalent of money. You have few minutes to get geysors and vehicles under your control, until eventually other civilizations will appear, challenging you for the resources. You can fight them, trade with them, or convert them for victory. I have only played a fighting game so far, and to be honest I got a little bit bored. I managed to take five cities quite quickly, but then lost them just as fast. Maybe the game is different when played from another angle. Once all cities on your continent have been conquered, you gain access to air units. Air units can cross the sea and attack enemy cities there. Coastal cities can produce ships, which can bombard coastal cities. Again, it might just be my play style, but I thought land vehicles become redundant when the continent is yours - there is no way I can see to transport them across the ocean. The editors are all awesome here, allowing you to build anything you see fit. You can edit houses, factories, entertainment facilites, city halls, land vehicles, air vehicles and sea vehicles. It is also possible to create your own national anthem. If you like creating stuff, you will love this phase. If not, you won't like it as much.

Space Phase - The final, and by far largest portion of the game. Once all cities are united and your spacecraft is built, you enter the Space Phase, where no one in the galaxy is safe from you anymore! The first 10-15 minutes of this stage seem a little tedious as you must do the missions set, but after that you can do as you see fit. You can continue exploring the galaxy, seeing who's creations lurk beyond your own solar system, construct a formidable empire with colonies and numerous spacecraft, or do other creatures bidding and become a widely liked and respected species. This is where Spore really shows off what it's got. The whole galaxy moves exactly how it should. Planets orbit stars, moons orbit planet, comets swoop around the stars and asteroid belts rotate realistically. The most fantastic thing is all of this can be seen from the planet you are on, which can create some fantastic views. As early as the Creature Stage I was watching the skys, with the planets and moons flying past and thinking "I'll be there soon." I feel travelling to the centre of the galaxy will take a gargantuan effort. The galaxy really is that huge, especially with the constant fear of transgressing in a hostile species territory. I haven't yet got the super-duper devices, like the planet destroyer or terra-former, but doing missions, meeting species, and finding artifacts all give you badges, which in turn allow more amazing gadgets to be bought.

So far, Spore has been a pleasure to play. If you want to guide a speices to the height of dominance or simply tinker about building ships and planes, this game is for you. I hope you enjoyed the read. :)

That is a great write up Salty Mud!
I have some questions-
can You name planets? I heard you can name your star ship.
When you find a new planet an you create another creature race or you just stay as your own species?
Can you enslave another race?

That is a great write up Salty Mud!
I have some questions-
can You name planets? I heard you can name your star ship.
When you find a new planet an you create another creature race or you just stay as your own species?
Can you enslave another race?

1. You can name your home planet, either with a randomly generated, pre-made name or make your own name up. All other planets in the game already have names. You can name your ship, along with anything else you create in the game (buildings, vehicles etc can all be named.)

2. When you find another planet, you can abduct creatures from other planets and put them on that planet, but you cannot control them - just watch how they react. Sometimes they will die instantly, other times they might survive and grow. Unfortunately, I haven't played long enough to see if tribes etc are formed, but I will research it if you wish. A rather humerous thing happened when I put a creature on a planet about 2 miles away from its star - he ran about and erupted into flames! So you cannot start again as a cell, or take control of another species, but for lesser civilizations you can frighten them with your awesome power! Which is always fun. ;)

3. Enslaving a race isn't possible, (as far as I know anyway) but you can ally with them and work together, or you could beat them into a pulp and make them submit to your bidding, if you class that as slavery. ;)

Anymore questions, just ask.

Just 2 more hours until gamespot opens.

two hours until it opens here... (i'm going with a friend to buy it... )

I thought the cell phase would bore me, but it was entertaining. When you build your cell (or later creature) you pay to add parts and can sell existing parts at half price, so there's some decision making about what you want to upgrade. I wanted to focus on the attack but found that my prey was running away too quickly, so I had to focus on speed, too.

I think the creature phase was my favorite. You have the same kind of compromises to make and can try to ally with other creatures.

Like I said, I stuck with carnivore all the way, but I don't think there's anything (except dna/money for buying mouths) preventing you from alternating between carnivore and herbivore every time you go to the creature builder. And it affects your creature's abilities based on how much you're a carnivore and how much a herbivore. It could be interesting to alternate.

The tribal phase reminded me a lot of Warcraft II, and the city phase reminded me of Command and Conquer. So far I like tribal much more than city.

I just started space. Be sure to zoom out and move the camera around...the galaxy looks really cool. But I haven't played space much. I'll probably start another cell next time I play.

One gameplay note: The part/clothes values aren't additive, so if you have a +2 health bonykneecap and a +2 health whatchamacallit they don't add up to +4. And while the cell creature parts give you abilities in the creature phase I think they either expire or are obsoleted by later creature parts you buy. Just sell a part every now and then to see if you lose an ability; if not then keep the cash. If so then undo.

I'm wondering... to the people that already have the game... If you find a T3 planet on which you just put a few members of your race (à la Survivor) do they start at the Tribe stage ? Do they ever grow a new population out of the few select members you placed on the planet ? Or well... what happens if you pust just a few members out there... without buildings, just them in the wild...

My compute sounds like it's dieing while I'm installing it.

The Cell/Creature/Tribe stages were all a lot of fun. Now I'm in the Civ stage, and my vehicles won't do what I tell them to do. :confused:

My compute sounds like it's dieing while I'm installing it.

Mine did as well for about 10 minutes, after that the install ran smoothly.

I'm wondering... to the people that already have the game... If you find a T3 planet on which you just put a few members of your race (à la Survivor) do they start at the Tribe stage ? Do they ever grow a new population out of the few select members you placed on the planet ? Or well... what happens if you pust just a few members out there... without buildings, just them in the wild...

I don't know, but I have found planets at various stages. For example I've found tribal and civ stage cities. And you could effect who wins by destroying certian teams (for example lazering all the blue tribe! :D) and I think they will advance through the stages.

Blimey, the amount of creations uploaded has absolutley rocketed today! It was 5mill ish this morning and is now over 6mill!

For whatever reason I couldn't get my copy to play after I installed for about 10 minutes. I've mainly been abducting things and dropping them from high altitudes, or into another tribes territory. I haven't seen an epic to abduct, but I'll keep that bugger and unleash him on someone.

I've installed and activated it on 56k connection. I can access everything and download creatures, but I have trouble sharing my creations. They either don't appear when I search for them on the server, or they appear after a long delay. I don't know if this is because of my bad connection, or just the servers being swamped?

Haven't played the actual game yet, as I've had too much fun making creatures in the editor! I hadn't seen the editors before, I can vouch for them being very intuitive and awesome. I was able to start making complex things straight away.

Cell stage was great, but could have been longer and had more bearing on the creature phase. The non-stacking of bonuses for creature phase also seems strange. Only people who want to 'role play' will have rational creatures, while others can get by on minimal limbs and items and save their DNA points for more stuff.

Herbivore 'missions' seem almost pointless. Eating plants doesn't seem to do anything. I have to walk around singing and dancing with wierd other creatures. Still, I'm having fun by not approaching it as a game, but as something different...

On the right-side of screen, where your health bar is, is your food bar.

Eat before that gets to zero. :D

I don't know, but I have found planets at various stages. For example I've found tribal and civ stage cities. And you could effect who wins by destroying certian teams (for example lazering all the blue tribe! :D) and I think they will advance through the stages.

Blimey, the amount of creations uploaded has absolutley rocketed today! It was 5mill ish this morning and is now over 6mill!

Yeah, I've tried transferring some citizens to a T1 planet when I didn't know what I was doing or how it was all working. I actually saw them light a little fire and sit next to it... but they weren't there the next time I came to that barren land.

Poor guys, they probably died of old age, alone and forgotten...

On the right-side of screen, where your health bar is, is your food bar.

Eat before that gets to zero.

Thanks :) yes I discovered that today (playing after having had some sleep helped!). I realise now the first few encouters were nice and gentle. It was only after exploring further that I met truly dangerous creatures, and neutral ones that were hard to impress. Although the basic concept was repetitve (impress, upgrade parts that impress, impress more, upgrade more parts, etc) it was still fun exploring the continent and meeting new creatures.

I had fun setting goals for myself, like reaching the north limit of the continent and getting home with dying (got eaten by an epic :( ), or trying to swim to an island (got swallowed by a giant reptillian humanoid rising out of the deep :( ). I didn't want to leave the creature phase until I felt I'd seen all there was to see on my continent, which was hours of fun, and I guess I still missed seeing some species and landmarks.

I don't know about the replay value yet, but I can imagine a different planet backdrop and different species (not to mention different playing style with another game) would keep things interesting.

First impressions of tribal stage is good. I wasn't expecting anything amazing due to what I'd already read from other's comments, so I'm just taking it as it is. I have found a bug where a couple of villagers dont seem to drop their tools when picking up new ones, and end up with strange blended objects in their hands - hope it won't be stuck that way when I reload!

Oh and about the installation itself, it did seem to take ages installing EA support files first, for some reason (just text and HTML pages as far as I know, nothing big). The progress bar hardly moved for 5 minutes, which worried me for a while!

I had a goal to take out all of the species in creature mode. I ended up pretty close I think. Right before my tribe moved the last time I killed one of those rougue things and it gave me the big brain but allowed be to continue getting DNA points. I was maxed out in almost every category before the end.

Now that I know what I am doing in the space phase I am having tremendous fun, I've got another trading race on my side and we are just taking out hoistile colonies. I'm getting really rich trading spice, and I'm learning how to transform planets. It's a good time. The one thing I don't know is how to raise temperature or lower it on a plnet. I assume it is something I will find later, but if anyone knows that'd be great.

I had a goal to take out all of the species in creature mode. I ended up pretty close I think. Right before my tribe moved the last time I killed one of those rougue things and it gave me the big brain but allowed be to continue getting DNA points. I was maxed out in almost every category before the end.

Now that I know what I am doing in the space phase I am having tremendous fun, I've got another trading race on my side and we are just taking out hoistile colonies. I'm getting really rich trading spice, and I'm learning how to transform planets. It's a good time. The one thing I don't know is how to raise temperature or lower it on a plnet. I assume it is something I will find later, but if anyone knows that'd be great.

You use the meteor or ice storm terraforming tools I think.

I'm having trouble in the space age! How do you even "take out" a hostile colony?? As soon as I even try attacking, I get PWNT. Not to mention I'm constantly under attack and can't do anything else than run to all my planets and defend while other ones get their colonies destroyed. Meanwhile my allies hate me because I don't have time to help them. When I try attacking, I take 2 or 3 friends with me but we get zapped out quickly. Is it because I played as mostly friendly before? I got green-green-green-red as my four stages. I was sort of forced to play bad boy in the previous phase too...

EDIT: Oh and I have another question; is the number of planets you see in the opening screen for starting new game the absolute maximum number of games you can have at the same time? Will I have to delete whole games when I fill all of these?

As you fill planets up, new ones open up. You'll always have at least 6 empty planets.

So far this is great fun!
why I chose a carnivore don't know was hungry :0 I guess? new game and all,
still in creature....
died 3 times getting -reborn is cool.
This game would be great for kids and even all grown ups too.
I feel like I am an alien creature! In another world.
Just pausing and looking up at the stars is real primal.

I agree with most of what was said in here -- all around good game. The one thing that really annoys me is that control of your units is sloppy and changes with each stage. I hate that I have to relearn how to navigate and target, etc -- in each stage.

What happened to the other stages? I thought there was to be 6 or 7, originally? expansion maybe...

Okay, so I've played quite a bit now and have been thinking about my impression...

I initially voted SPACE as my favorite stage, because for me it represented the ultimate Spore. Let me explain.

On my first play through, I was disappointed by the lack of depth and "gamey" aspects of the four first stages and I found them incredibly repetitive and vain. But I quickly started to enjoy the customization aspect of it and realized Spore was all about creation and customization and exploration and internet seeding and funny discoveries.

At that point, I thought "GREAT! I can't wait for Space Age when I'll have all this freedom to terraform planets, put whatever animals I want everywhere, etc! This is gonna be awesome". And it was like that, briefly. But as soon as I found myself in an accidental war, or my empire was a bit too big, or I knew too many people, I started to be bogged down by constant attacks and crippling missions and requests, leaving me no time to even notice what color the moon of my home-world was. And I realized they put a lot of "depth and gamey" in the part where I was looking forward NOT TO HAVE THEM so that I could have my freedom. Yeah, I want interaction in space, but I want my freedom to express creativity a lot more... freely... ahem...

So in conclusion... For now, before patches... They removed all the gamey things from the parts where they should have been, and put them all where I didn't want them to be. As far as I'm concerned, they could leave the first stages alone, I already decided to take them as they are. But they need to let me be a lot freer in space.

PS, in a relatively unrelated way: I find a few of the creature design limitations to be rather annoying though. For instance, once I bought a pair of legs, I should be allowed to copy it on my creature as many times as I want for free. As it currently is, I find it limits my creativity to have me pay for every single pair of the same thing. Sure, I can spend the extra DNA making a 6-legged monster... But I may not have the DNA to afford the 6 feet that go with it, so only one pair of legs will have the strongest feet. Wut?!? And yeah, I wish having more of one item would make a difference (two sets of spikes instead of one should be more dangerous... Not just give me a combat rating or something)... But whatever. This doesn't bother me as much as the space age thing.

EDIT: I had never seen this 35 minutes presentation that many of you have probably seen. It's Spore as it was in 2005. I think I should never have watched it as I am now rather annoyed at what they removed. Oh well.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8dvMDFOFnA

When I first get to creature phase, I love watching the day/night cycles. I was so surprised and pleased to see a gas giant rise during the night on my most recent Creature phase. It's the little things that immerse me in this game, and so far I've had many more satisfying moments than I have in a game for a long time.

It doesn't really bother me how other people play or create their creatures - each of mine is an organism struggling for a place in a world that gets larger and larger until it becomes a galaxy full of life, and I get immense satisfaction in guiding them towards that goal.

I also enjoy befriending a 'Rogue' in creature mode as a completely passive herbivore, and letting it become my bodyguard (if anyone attacks, they get flattened), and then having it automatically become a pet during tribal phase. Like I said, the little things. :)

When I first get to creature phase, I love watching the day/night cycles. I was so surprised and pleased to see a gas giant rise during the night on my most recent Creature phase. It's the little things that immerse me in this game, and so far I've had many more satisfying moments than I have in a game for a long time.

It doesn't really bother me how other people play or create their creatures - each of mine is an organism struggling for a place in a world that gets larger and larger until it becomes a galaxy full of life, and I get immense satisfaction in guiding them towards that goal.

I also enjoy befriending a 'Rogue' in creature mode as a completely passive herbivore, and letting it become my bodyguard (if anyone attacks, they get flattened), and then having it automatically become a pet during tribal phase. Like I said, the little things. :)

If you get three different species in your posse in creature mode, you get an achievement plus they all become domesticated in tribal phase for the highest food collection rating. :)

Pretty SWEET!

Okay, so I've played quite a bit now and have been thinking about my impression...

I initially voted SPACE as my favorite stage, because for me it represented the ultimate Spore. Let me explain.

On my first play through, I was disappointed by the lack of depth and "gamey" aspects of the four first stages and I found them incredibly repetitive and vain. But I quickly started to enjoy the customization aspect of it and realized Spore was all about creation and customization and exploration and internet seeding and funny discoveries.

At that point, I thought "GREAT! I can't wait for Space Age when I'll have all this freedom to terraform planets, put whatever animals I want everywhere, etc! This is gonna be awesome". And it was like that, briefly. But as soon as I found myself in an accidental war, or my empire was a bit too big, or I knew too many people, I started to be bogged down by constant attacks and crippling missions and requests, leaving me no time to even notice what color the moon of my home-world was. And I realized they put a lot of "depth and gamey" in the part where I was looking forward NOT TO HAVE THEM so that I could have my freedom. Yeah, I want interaction in space, but I want my freedom to express creativity a lot more... freely... ahem...

So in conclusion... For now, before patches... They removed all the gamey things from the parts where they should have been, and put them all where I didn't want them to be. As far as I'm concerned, they could leave the first stages alone, I already decided to take them as they are. But they need to let me be a lot freer in space.

PS, in a relatively unrelated way: I find a few of the creature design limitations to be rather annoying though. For instance, once I bought a pair of legs, I should be allowed to copy it on my creature as many times as I want for free. As it currently is, I find it limits my creativity to have me pay for every single pair of the same thing. Sure, I can spend the extra DNA making a 6-legged monster... But I may not have the DNA to afford the 6 feet that go with it, so only one pair of legs will have the strongest feet. Wut?!? And yeah, I wish having more of one item would make a difference (two sets of spikes instead of one should be more dangerous... Not just give me a combat rating or something)... But whatever. This doesn't bother me as much as the space age thing.

EDIT: I had never seen this 35 minutes presentation that many of you have probably seen. It's Spore as it was in 2005. I think I should never have watched it as I am now rather annoyed at what they removed. Oh well.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8dvMDFOFnA

Same here. From the video feeds I've seen, it seems like Space is more like a "Space Tradewars" game than actually being able terraform, populate planets with creature of your choice (even playing them, or just watching them evolve/interact/experiment). The fact that the physics of body size/limb configuration was taken out really dulls that freedom of experimentation. These are the main reasons its' making me hesitant to buy the game; I want to be able to create planets and creatures from scratch in the Space stage, watch them interact, play as the creatures and not have to bother with trade/requests/attacks every 15 minutes. Even the colored lines between planets look confusing when there's lots of them. I guess I was also hoping this would be SimEarth II or SimLife II after looking at the GDC 2005 video... I get the feeling that I'd be dissapointed if I get this game. I'm probably going to wait for a patch, or, at least, a duluxe expansion set (if they do something like Sims where there's 8+ expansions... I'm not about to shell out $300-$400 - I'd rather pay $40-$50.).

That entire video was prerendered, It doesn't take three years to make a gam worse.

You can terraform,Someone found our solar system and Terraformed Earth's moon and Mars.
It isn't like SimEarth with sliders and all, but that may come later in a patch or expansion.
Or most likely People Modding the game,You don't need all the expansions to use Sims2 mods. There is weather in the game ( in creature at least) electrical storm/thunder and rain.
I don't think it will be too long before the space part is total Sandbox.

I've found that I'm having plenty of time to terraform. I've tried to keep my expansion very slow, so that what I do make will be good. I haven't played in a day or two, but I have a couple T2's that have turrets, the next time they get attacked I'm going to save and see if they can defend themselves well enough to let me leave them alone. I have one race at war with me but I have two allies, I'm just going to talk my allies into attacking their planets, and then go in myself and whomp them. once you get certain weapons you can knock out cities easy. I have a medium laser and it destroys cities prety quick. The easiest thing to me was to get a couple allies and just have them attack my enemies for me.

the space pirates do get annoying, but if you don't want to deal with them, go down the carnivore predator path. The consequence there is that pirates stay away from you.

the space pirates do get annoying, but if you don't want to deal with them, go down the carnivore predator path. The consequence there is that pirates stay away from you.

Do the pirates only steal your stuff? I haven't seen them actually attacking me yet. They just take my spice and go away, which isn't too bad. But in that game I did have the pirate-attack-are-reduced skill (you get that from being military in the Civ stage).

Nah, in my game it was the atrocious rate of alien nation attacks that made me whine a lot.

My first impression is from stone axes to a big ass battle walker with howitzers and huge death cannons. Nothing would have satisfied me more than to watch my guys evolve their technology as they evolved their bodies. The civ game really should have been a game of civ... Would have kicked a whole hell of alot more ass that way... Especially if we could design our own wonders of the world, and trash like that.

Maybe I should play the game over in hard, because for my warmongering race, it only took me like 45 minutes to whup tribal and really only a half hour to beat civ stage hahaha. And 10 of those minutes in civ stage was me jacking around with my anthem.

At any rate, at least there's different paths to take on each stage, so I'll replay it again with a different species and see what happens. In conclusion, good game.. But it could be a whole helluvalot better.... As with alot of other games.

I realize that every day I'm expecting a patch to be out already to fix Space Age! I'm sure they will release a patch addressing some of the overwhelming comments about Space... I just want it now! :D

I have just started space stage,So I am yet to get into all the "wars" and over the top micromanagement"?
Its has been a fun game,and give sense of life from a cell all the way to tribe and Civ
Civ by far was the easiest and shortest for me.
From the earliest times in creature there was a sense of looking up in the night sky (with UFOs buzzing around ) thinking this "being" will get to space too.
So for me there was a linear game with funny things in between.
8/10 and 9/10 for the creator editors, That is a buzz seeing something you made interact in the game.

It isn't like the Spore I expected, I suspect EA took parts out and made it similar to the Sims2. For expansions and to try and capture that crowd.
Which is really silly Sims is like families/ dream homes/ clothes furniture.

Spore is science, scifi they could have had 2 levels to it 1 for children and one for adults
where it was more realistic and closer to what Will Wright envisioned.
Guess I wanted "emulation of real life in a test tube" totally designed by me and realistic life evolution to a sand box galaxy where you "create" a star then its planets (terraforming) and seed with life.
Maybe in Spore 2?

I'm now finding two weeks later that I can only bring myself to play cell, creature and sometimes tribe. I think in another week I'll be over Spore and returning to mod Civ4: colonization ready for it's release. :D

Great read. I find the Cell phase amazing. Competition over food sources, feasting frenzies (Nobody wants to be left out hungry), etc. It is simply a stunningly funny phase. Can't wait to play tribal.

... And yes I haven't done so yet because I have played the Cell phase over and over again :D

Still playing my first game. Now up to 40 solar systems and about 50 planets. I can get about 90 blue, red and yellow spice always as i just have wayyy to much producing it. Attacks have slowed recently, with just 2 grox attack, 3 pirates, 2 enemy and 1 eco disaster today. More to come as i continue trying to take over the galaxy.