Spore - An LGR Retrospective Review 

Same

Absolutely. Actually, I think it's on my Top 3 videogames list even now.

Same, and i still play it :P

I also played it when I was younger. And it was my first triple-A games on PC. I loved it to death.

Gabe Newell me too

Spore was also gonna have a movie, but it got cancelled.

Spore did get a sequel of sorts. It got Darkspore, a gritty, bloody, top-down, Diablo-style, RPG version of Spore. It was pretty fun, the graphics and fighting were good. It's just a shame EA shut the servers down about a year ago.

mfw i sent maxis a physical letter with the idea for darkspore and i got 0 credit. why even live

Well, there is a game called thrive that is in development. It's being made as a passion project by people who wanted something more scientifically accurate, even though they try to distance themselves from anologies to Spore. Here's more than a couple of links: revolutionarygamesstudio.com/ www.reddit.com/r/thrive/ thrivegame.freeforums.net/ forum.revolutionarygamesstudio.com/

I feel that a game like spore would do best as multiple different games one for each stage, then connect them together in a brand new game. That way you can take the time to make each stage great on its own before the game as a whole is put together. That would allow them to get income for each stage and then when everything is finished they can improve each section so it is different from the previous iterations.

What is it with dads and playing terrible games for hundreds of hours? My friends dad's did this, my dad played a single flash game endlessly, I don't get it

@@chickenman1801 Spore isn't a bad game

@@microwavedonut6412 the space stage sucked, it is mediocre at best

@@chickenman1801 He liked Macromanagment.

@@chickenman1801 you say it because ur small brain

*cough cough* bethesda

Well, yeah, what other game has "Alien BBC's" in it? I can't remember any other game that had soooooo many giant, alien c*cks in it.. haha 😂

"Doesn't have to be the best, just better than anything else currently available" That's the best

@@SonKunSama hahahahha

Same with sims and city skylines before

Same, this game was supposed to be amazing.

The preview video was shown like 2 years before the actual release, so the hype was insanely high when it finally came out.

So True

it was so fucking hard to see that game get smashed by EA.

I agree, but the game we have now is still very good. I just wish they’d release a sequel that had all the things they said spore would have.

Hah. Please submit a stool sample for review. We at EA really must be sure that it is indeed you playing our game.

Drake Sigar To be fair, they do need the stool samples. EA's entire management is made up of those after all.

What was crazy was that for all of their efforts, the game was literally cracked and torrented a week or so before the release date. o.o

Alex Harris Which goes to show how useless DRM is and how it only hurts legitimate customers.

+Drake Sigar Haha, like Valve

My pack of Flying Jurassic park Raptors can confirm, all those Giant monsters stood no chance

I totally agree. I think spore is awesome. No Man's Sky was the disappointment of the century. It's such a shame because the concept is amazing

@@ConsciousRobot Hey, I'd recommend checking out the video 'The engoodening of no man's sky' - you'll see the (very interesting) story of the game's journey and how it has now become what was originally promised!

If you have the highest tier wing and jump boost you can fly about 1/3 the way around the planet.

@@UNSCPILOT human evolution only feeding garbage stuff thing

Yes

it also deserves some love from EA too... but god forbid they give a shit about something that doesn't make enough money for them

spore would be way better with aquatic stage

A mile wide lake thats 2 inches deep. Fun but quickly grows repetitive and shallow.

@@blackcat2333 I mean they probably told Will Wright to "dumb it down because kids wont play it". Yeah like it ever stopped me from playing StarCraft at age of 10 and enjoying it. There is a reason why he left gaming after Spore. Because Electronic ARTS (aka expression yourself through creative peace) just wont let anyone to make that kind of game, if it doesn't fill "every demographic cheak mark".

guil14st If they had gotten away from EA? Why do you think a company like EA buys a company like Maxis in the first place? Because Maxis fucked up, that's why, they created a few games that people didn't buy and bought another company to compound their failures. So they went around looking to get bought by someone else. So EA bought them. And allowed them to create the Sims which is one of the most popular PC franchises of all time, along with sim city 4 and 3000. And of course Spore. So what's preferable to that? allowing maxis to go out of business in 96? Or being bought by another company that wouldn't take a risk on the Sims?

+guil14st another game developers dead by EA is: Westwood studios(one that make Command and Conquer)

Big middle finger for you EA! Good old franchise are dead, because of EA. (Ultima, Command and Conquer, and SimCity)

***** expect some people will uses that original game to make machinima that portrays Gods of old as Unintelligent Herbivores

Maxis isn't dead. It is their original studio that closed.

DaS Guardians same

DaS Guardians same here

Me too

Agreed. No matter how many flaws the game has, that process never gets old. Always fun.

maxis got shutdown by EA, i still think that the guy that did that needs to be fired

They kind of did with Darkspore. But becuase of letdown (sales and people intrested in it) EA will NEVER relise it again. Because it is about that money.

Any other company should buy the rights and make a reamstered, but EA want, I think, so much money for it

Ea killed it

Yeah I'm in the minority of those who really like the game and I'm not even an atheist

Maxis is know for its out of the ordinary content editors... I mean look around there is no editor like spore and the sims...

All I want is a game that can accurately be described as, "Spore, only good".

would a olympic games simulator starring native americans and your own handmade abominations/things of beauty count? Amazing Island on the gamecube is, exactly that.

i began working on a similar scope of game - minus the single cell organism - but i guess Hello Games beat me to it. Lost Astronaut's Empire in the Sky, circa 2007

Wasn't there a How to Train Your Dragon game with a creature creator?

Yeah, as long as it's not made by EA

@@mcxopjesh every stages is gonna be dlc.

A spiritual successor for sure would be great, mix in a little Kerbal Space Program for the ships in the later stages

Every evolution will be gained by opening loot-boxes, sorry i meant "suprise mechanics".

@@SIPEROTH why you hatin'!?!? its just like a kinder egg! lmao

Don’t quote the ancient magic to me witch, I was there when it was written

@@Arjay82 have no vechiel can turn into humanoid

@@Arjay82 It was their own demo videos that convinced people, they didn't just invent those expectations out of thin air. They showed it actually working, in-game, then took it out because a vocal majority in the studio wanted it to be a dumbed-down kids' game instead.

@@MoogieSRO 6 months late but it was beaucse EA happened. EA forced all those to go away. Yes EA wanted to make it more 'kid friendly'. If it wasn't EA we would have gotten the Spore we WAITED FOR

I lvoe the game,but what we gotcha is what less complex then the ideia they solded, and the most of the gam play being the space stage is quite different from what a lot of people wanted of the game

@@MoogieSRO it wasn't maxis, it wasn't the studio. It was the publisher, EA. And we all hate EA oh so much

same! it's not a perfect game but it was my first ~real~ game too and it reminds me of good times. I used to come over to my friend's house just to play it on her computer

I recently got the game last year (for my birthday) and I actually decided to get it because of a negative review I watched online. Even though everyone who reviewed it said bad things saying it was disappointing, boring, and not really worth your time, I bought the game anyway. And let me just tell you, I was completely surprised that they thought the game was that bad. Sure, it may have let them down because they thought they were getting a different game with better features and such, but I feel like they're ignoring the great parts about it.

Same

Lakupata same here :D

Yeah like, I had SO much fun with it until recently i heard everyone hates it??? I don't understand why are you all so angry

Yeah, it’s pretty awesome, no idea why people seem so screwy about it

I just wanted spore because I saw some other person play it on RU-vid and it looked exactly like the kind of game I'd want to play. Eventually I got it and I loved it! I'be spent hundreds of hours in spore!

Same

I personally don't think it's a flop, even if it didn't live up to many people's expectations. Many many people loved the game, including myself, and with all the expansion packs, the game was hands down one of the most enjoyable, fun and amazing games I've played at the time. Not only did I play it for hours and hours, I've actually met people on there I'm still friends with today. Spore will always have a special place in my heart

@Muchinoi same goes to Cyberpunk 2077

@Muchinoi well almost everybody know cyberpunk 2077 hype and fall tho lol, thought you heard it, its literally just everywhere in the "game news".

Same haha

LOL

Wangvolution..lol

@@doomslayer163 Oh my God lol

@@tackyman2011 potentially this game gaining knowledge of fermi paradox but fail

matt lam I KNEW I wasn't the only one who thought the same!

i feel like they should add the features together and it would be a proper Spore *or* No mans sky xD

Jahrazz Jahrazz no man's spore

matt lam Spore is a good game anyway

Spore alone is a good game

Robo9400 Got it. No surprises here.

Dr. Steve Brule Yeah, somewhere after the initial backlash about how the new demos were making the game seem a bit neutered and cartoony, Will Wright started saying things about how he was trying to scale back the project to have a wider appeal, to make as much money as the sims, and that sort of thing. I remember watching a programmer on the team try to hype how they did the creature creation kit and he was talking about how difficult it is to make the player feel like they're being creative, but without letting them make creatures that are too weird or ugly. The developers started talking about how they want children to play the game, too, and so they had to get rid of the more heady concepts and any sort of advanced strategy and keep the whole game simple. My impression is that Will Wright was trying to cash in, that he knew it would be his last major release and intentionally and cynically put out a sub-par game that would appear to the widest audience possible. Early in the hype phase he said it would be his masterpiece, his crowning achievement of what he always ultimately wanted to do with his games. Maybe it didn't pan out the way he wanted it to and tried to "save" it by turning it into something far less interesting or personal. I'm sure whatever EAs involvement in the franchise was, it wasn't positive. They tend to do that to games. Really, EA is about the worst company to produce highly unique and unconventional games like Will Wright did.

+Robo9400 All I remember was some developer from the game cited a "perfect design" flaw with real physics, bone structures etc, so they axed them. What he meant was that one design that had the least problems would reign supreme and people would make less creative things, so they changed it so placement doesn't matter. A spike looks cool on the head but it might as well be inverted into the anus of your creature it'll do the same damage!

For your health.

Dr. Steve Brule I think this was before EA started eating babies

I did the exact same thing! Except for the fact that I still do.

you should check out DarkEdgeTV if you want some inspiration. They make really great creations and upload quite regularly

Oh, they do? I thaught they've shut it down down

Well, I think we all just asked a what if if the species was actually existing. And I'm one of them, but... it's a more complicated thing, but I adore doing lore for my stuff. And of course dumbasscrappystupid looking creatures :3

youre so cool and original. gag.

Jesse Crandle Probably the better alternative. I'd take making things and running around with them committing genocide over getting drunk anyday.

Jesse Crandle Preach to the choir.

Think the term we're a-looking for is minor. But yes, I am still a minor. Don't know why that's relevant.

+Owneador1337 I was 11, when it came out. :|

+EmpressWolf Does it matter?The sims was rated T and Kids play that sometimes

Ye, I wish it sticked through the final release :(

yes and there was meant to be a stage between the tribal and civilization stage which i found in the game files called City stage from what i could tell from all of the files it would be a president battle over who would be in charge of the city which you could have you oppenments assassinated or framed and other things

Jammy Gamer That would be really awesome. Fucking EA farming money.

omg that would be so good

DragonFighter732 yep

+Amayirot Akago Likewise. I was totally in on the hype and was let down when Spore was 5 OK games in one. Instead of one cohesive grand game

littleNorwegians I would've been happier if all that time went into the space stage alone, I think.

MetrotomX5 Yeah. In a way, that could've been the entire game concept.

PsychoIncarnate i either make it a ball of lava or take away the atmosphere, just making em choke

you are my kind of person.

PsychoIncarnate That there is problem solving. Taking down t3 planets with a Lazer is impossible

+Gabe Merritt meteor shower

You are, all of you, vermin! Cowering in the dirt, thinking... what, I wonder? That you might escape the coming fire? No! Your world will burn until its surface is but glass! And not even your Demon will live to creep - blackened - from its hole to mar the reflection of our passage, the culmination of our Journey. For your destruction is the Will of the Gods. And I? I am their instrument!

Thats why you buy 300 things

hardware limits from the time of Spore’s development is the true reason to blame

@@pacmanfan-sz9ry Doubt, it was certainly possible for computers at the time

There's a pretty good modding scene still around that has given space stage a bit more content!

Oh god, I'm right there with you, buddy. I started following the game after that 2005 demo came out when I was 13. I watched and re-watched the demo so many times. I was madly in love with the idea of this game for three long years and then it came out and it was just like... "Oh." : /

Sims4News Google Video! I remember going on there watching funny cat videos. Good times.

haha I saw that one really long Will Wright demonstration on Google video too

Sims4News Same here, I was so excited to read the first reviews when the game came out. Guess I read more than ten reviews because I couldn't believe it was such a huge letdown. Well, so I never bought it and still don't regret it for all I can see. :-/

Sims4News But tentacles are the best part!

Really? People said it sucked so bad? Was it really that much fun?

@@Seth9809 I've never heard that Spore arguably sucked but galactic adventures was awesome, it basically let you create your own levels with a lot of different tools to add effects, music, audio, etc as well as any creatures/buildings, and you can create quests to follow. I spent hours creating worlds when I was younger

​@@Seth9809 Well, the controls certainly suck to a degree. Playing the adventures is a whole 'nother thing to making them. There are also restrictive complexity limitations that hamper the really creative and detail-oriented players.

Have a look at this game revolutionarygamesstudio.com/ It's a game called Thrive that is basically trying to become what Spore was meant to be, but super realistic and in-depth. It's very early in development and it's slow going but it does seem to be very interesting. Honestly, I'm surprised that so few people have heard about it.

Muchinoi Ja, I honestly don't see Thrive going anywhere, they've barely made a functional cell stage. The premise seems to be much better tho.

Hey Figgy, keep making sweet mashups man! Love your content!

He was gonna die eventually.

@@mrgw98 he wasn't so young tho. That's not why his death was so shocking. It was the manner in how he died.

Ryan Amberger Thank you!

Lazy Game Reviews Yeah you are _dead on_ dude, please, take my money

I think that means they failed to educate.

Hello ya dad.sounds fun

That's crazy! 😂

The absolute state of public school education.

Steel Fairy Thanks, I try my best :)

IIRC the team was split into the "cool" and "cute" team; the "cool" team, who wanted to keep with the original idea, and the "cute" team, who wanted a more fun, accessible idea, from which EA saw dollar signs from being able to widen the market to younger audiences, and so the game was made as kid-friendly as they needed to get the rating as low as possible; it resulted in a PG, which is practically a U in the eyes of the consumer, and "virtual babysitter" in the baggy eyes of tired as fuck parents, so EA had achieved their goal, to the cost of what the actual game promised. There were also some graphical and technical issues that resulted in some features being cut, for example: the aquatic stage was cut due to being too similar to the space stage (alongside graphical issues).

Commandant Obvious Did that play a part in making Wright leave EA/Maxis? Also thanks for the detailed response, that's actually quite helpful!

*There isn't exactly a publicly announced reason* why Will left the AAA industry (but presumably had his own reason), but we can assume that a few factors contributed: 1) EA's customer unfriendly development strategies and the general direction AAA games are going left Will disillusioned with the industry. 2) Furthermore, EA's lacklustre development strategies had caused the rocky launch of many of Maxis' recent titles and the death of others (Spore and the Sims 4 being the only surviving titles, although the Sims 3 excelled, and is hailed as the best core Sims title to date); to illustrate: he described the near unplayable state of SimCity [2013] (due to major server problems) as "inexcusable".

Commandant Obvious Aight, cheers man that's good knowledge!

They still do this,, EA does it with every game, If the game looks good aka battlefront , then their is little content to be found

Hell no. How the hell was this game content rich? It had mediocre replayability and that's it.

@@marmitaa8619 Your opinion. I played it a lot and still do replay it every once in a while, so it is pretty replayable.

369 Theres, in the end, several ways to play spore throughout each stage. The way you handle each and every stage of the game adjusts your abilities in the following stages. In an essence, I find it much more entertaining than the sims, anyway. It’s style of generation seems like a precursor to No Man’s Sky; no two planets are the same, and there’s thousands of them. Spore has it’s maintained following for good reason, and EA still has the game’s servers up for a reason too.

@Muchinoi 400 hours? Come back when you hit 5000 son. I've played games i've absolutely despiced longer than that. Minecraft is a horrible example, but i still bet you would play it more then Spore if you used mods. Unlike Spore you won't run out of content since there is literally a endless supply of mods. Yes there is even a Spore mod for Minecraft.

Why is it risky to pick up a used game past 3007

+Tygames 2007

Tygames Some games use a one time code for either Steam or U-Play.

spore can be used 5 times. plus, the game came out in 2008

oh... oops

My favourite part lol

@@eduardofreitas8336 I think he means a separate aquatic stage between the cell stage and creature stage. The aquatic stage as far as I know didn't end up in the final product.

And Maxis had the opportunity to bring it back as an expansion pack, but they didn't do it.

Thank you!

So many subs

Yup, it was only you. But it's your opinion, so I'm glad you enjoy it.

@@narata1541 nope the game's awesome

@@narata1541 your outnumbered man yea it wasn't as good as planned but was still an amazing game and very advanced for its time

@@ScottishRebel indeed, seeing your own UFO when you were creature stage is awesome as hell. it's mind blowing when i was kid back in 2009

I was a child when the game came out and had no clue. I just found out today that people was disappointed by the game. To me it was just pure gold.

EA: Introducing Spore Remastered Edition. Pay $25 for the creature creator, then pay $5 for each stage up to the space stage where you have to buy it twice cuz fuck u. We also added galactic adventures into the base game! No expansion needed. But, to play them you have to pay for each adventure (like Bethesda's Creation Club). Also, no mod support or any cute and creepy creatures pack.

It's definitely worth mentioning in a review when a game was advertised as something different/better. I would have loved a more realistic educational game, with the ability to simulate actual evolution. The developers made promises and it's important to remember what could/should have been

It did, it's called no man's sky

There was DarkSpore.

Honestly a more realistic spore sounds boring, i completely get why they changed it if it was just a realistic sim of being some realistic animal it would have been way less fun and creative and enjoyable

packersfanover18 I appreciate that a lot :)

No problem, I can't pay attention to anything for that long, I have the worst attention span haha, I don't really care about spore, or the Sims for the matter. But the way in which you deliver all the information is super interesting. So I watch them every time. Thanks for all the great content!!

same the nostalgia almost hurts :(

tre14321 hurts for sure. I still love this game... it's such a shame so few people play this nowadays, can't blame them though.

***** Well, the developers didn't deliver on their promises, they are responsible for the game. If you're expecting a car for your birthday and get a bike, it's really disappointing and it ruins your enjoyment of the bike, even if it's a perfectly good bike.

cowoftheseas Also, you were 10. Dafuq would you know about good game design? It turned into a children's game, of course you liked it. Although, I concede, creating creatures was fun for a while.

***** Where did I said I am some expert game design critic? It became more simplified, doesn't mean it still cant be a good game. Again, I'm not saying it is the most amazing game, but thats's not the point. The point is people are looking at it way more harshly because of the dissapointment of the hype.

cowoftheseas Exactly. I heard zero of the hype and as such I wasn't disappointed when I bought and played the game as all I was expected was a fun creature creator game, which it was. It's only a bad game if people take the pre-game hype into account. Well that and the gameplay in between the creators can get boring, especially the space stage.

+cowoftheseas I really loved Rts games as a kid, still do, and Spore was supposed the game of games. 5 full games in one, including a unique space and creature stage. I was devastated when, rather than gradually evolving into space, there was no timeline, no renaissance, no industrial revolution or ww2 era. just two jumps of unfun stages and you're in space. That and not being able to beam down on planets in space stage ruined the feel of the game for me

Eener1000 I like cell stage too, creature stage is my fav tho.

Yes--because the cell stage is the only one where the choices you make and the shape of your creature actually MATTERS, and all parts have a use. ...Like all stages were promised to be in the preview, but instead it's just a fantasy art program that railroads you into picking the part with the highest number and sticking it...well anywhere and it doesn't f_ing matter. And if you want to completely redo your creature at any point basically for free, there's no barrier to that. Just to reinforce that nothing you ever do matters.

My favorite stages are Civilization and Cell, I just love capturing cities

Smut Brush it's Firefly

Whoa another gun channel in LGR’s comments

Gorramit

What about Smeg?

Abso-fragging-lutely dammit!

And No Man's Sky began

+OneQuarterLife wouldn't it be great if that were true. Hey, I guess they were both lies and letdowns.

I agree that NMS was a disappointment if you bought into the hype, and that it's a bit buggy, but nobody can say that NMS doesn't do Spore's space stage better in every category.

Same here. The main thing that interested me was the evolution gameplay, and that only lasted two stages. :( I did have a lot of fun with galactic adventures expansion pack though. It would have been so cool if the environment and in-game actions influenced evolution instead of you deliberately changing it. :L

As soon as I reached the space stage, the game continued for me. Even more than before.

Another settlement needs your help

Another settlement needs your help

Another settlement needs your help.

Another settlement needs your help.

Incoming transmission from your homeworld

Maybe a C.

Technically speaking, that was the game at that point and time. The fact that it changed later in development is another thing. This isn't false advertising

Jamison Massae EA man...always EA

The Hive Tyrant I'm glad you enjoyed it!

The Hive Tyrant Normally I get tired of people ranting on video games, but LGR never fails to keep me interested in the content he's talking about. I loved that this review was long. With all the things regarding Spore, it honestly needed to be.

obviously

MetrotomX5 It is, but nonetheless they were billing it as such during all the early promotion! If anything, it resulted in some enjoyable online arguments between folks where or not it advocated intelligent design. Yes, _enjoyable_ online arguments. They exist sometimes :)

MetrotomX5 To be fair, they could have included the option. Either go creative with your creatures every chance you got or let evolution take its course based on your original design, then you'll have to play with whatever changes the game itself does to your character.

Dreadjaws That's not really a justifiable option for the development team. Making such a fundamental core concept of the game an option like that would essentially split Spore into 2 separate games based around the evolutionary concept. Point is, the game isn't designed to be an evolutionary simulator. The systems and mechanics aren't even tailored to allow for it. It's not exactly a week-long thing to implement in development time - it's require a complete rearchitecture of the game from both the simulation and game design perspectives.

Lazy Game Reviews Indeed, what was marketed was very different from what was released. About the online arguments... really I see it as just a whole bunch of arguing about nothing important. Maxis' goal was pretty clearly to make a game, not to make a political or religious statement. I don't think game developers should get caught up in controversy about whether their game is an advocate towards religion or not.

MetrotomX5 How is it not an option? It's not only perfectly feasible, it's easy to implement, and it adds more content to the game, which, considering all that was cut, definitely makes it justifiable. The idea that it requires a complete rearchitecture is ridiculous. Plus, it doesn't even need to be the main game mode, just an extra for a bit of enjoyment.

KUDOS When you're 11, one tends to adore an awful lot without much critique :)

Lazy Game Reviews That's actually true.

Tentacle sporn

Italian Republic too far...

MegaBlast Games is that basically Spore porn?

pretty much

SSHHHHHHH you will wake up the shadmonster!!

Spore!!!!

+Wolfy Luna You can have a party of 4 or 5 in the space stage.

Rock with allies if I recall yes, but not with one's own fleet

+Rock yes, but they all die quickly and then blame you for it.

Cyborgslayer404d same:3

The problem, that the second demo was actually the game (first demo was a demonstration of what they can do, with some shit that i forgot the name) and when people bought the game, they thought that they will get it, but EA had they're plans, sadly

hype really kill game, Cyberpunk 2077 get really mess up