Spore Is STILL an Underrated Classic

Spore Is STILL an Underrated Classic

Even 12 years after its release, Spore’s community and unlimited creativity is still alive and well. Here’s why the underrated game is a classic.

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Spore Is STILL an Underrated Classic

Maxis’ 2008 “everything simulator” Spore had a rocky release, despite the company’s history with simulating everything from railways to ants. Fans had come to expect way more than what was promised during the game’s development. Spore was an ambitious project that set out to simulate every stage of life, from a single cell organism to a space-faring empire. Granted, that’s what fans got, but pre-release trailers and gameplay hinted at a far more in-depth evolution simulation.

Fans and critics were both disappointed with Spore, but much like No Man’s Sky, that doesn’t mean the game deserves to be completely cast aside. Spore always has been, and continues to be, an underrated classic that’s absolutely worth trying. Even if it didn’t reach the levels that some were expecting, there’s a lot to enjoy with the game.

Spore’s gameplay involves players creating a microbial creature and progressing through the stages of evolution. Cell Stage mainly involves eating, staying alive and earning DNA points, which can be used to add new parts onto a creature. Once a player’s creature gains enough points, they grow legs and enter the Creature Stage.

Spore Is STILL an Underrated Classic

The Creature Stage is fairly similar to the Cell Stage, though it does add the mechanic of either befriending or killing other creatures. This social aspect is carried over into the Age of Empires-like Tribal Stage, where players control a tribe of their creature and must either assimilate other tribes into their own or destroy them. Then, the tribe becomes a full civilization, where the player controls vehicles to capture a valuable resource known as Spice.

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In the Civilization Stage, each opposing civilization is made up of the player’s creature with different ideologies. The player’s own ideology is determined by how they’ve played the game up until this point. If they have killed more than they’ve socialized, for example, the player’s ideology will be more militaristic. The player’s actions from stage to stage also grants them different special abilities in each stage.

From the Civilization Stage comes the Space Stage which, depending on you’re asking, is either the best or worst part of the game. The real draw of this stage is the sheer scale of the galaxy that only some games, like the indie gem Galimulator, have managed to capture. The Space Stage is incredibly open-ended, and the player isn’t given a direct goal. The only real direction is to interact with other space-faring civilizations, but the definition of “interact” really depends on the nature of the player’s creature.

Spore Is STILL an Underrated Classic

Spore encourages multiple playthroughs with different creature types, as the gameplay changes depending on the nature of the player’s creature. There’s also a wide range of unique events that can happen, so players who want to experience everything Spore has to offer have reason to return. The Space Stage is so expansive that it’s really hard to see everything that the universe has to offer on only one save.

Speaking of multiple saves, players can actually interact with their other save files if they find the planets in the Space Stage. Little details like these make Spore such a unique experience. The game really feels like a living and breathing galaxy that reacts to the actions of just one creature.

On that note, Spore might not be the “everything simulator” that it was dubbed pre-launch. What Spore is, however, is an amazing universe simulator. Actions from one creature impact the entire universe, even across save files. This even extends to the creations others players make, as one player’s creature could be another player’s demise.

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One of the best parts of Spore is the game’s community. Being able to upload and download creatures to the community creations and see them appear randomly during gameplay is a lot of fun. Players can even set up specific collections of creations for the game to prioritize populating the world with.

Some might be shocked to hear that Spore’s servers are still up and running, allowing for community creations to continue to exist. Some players have reported needing to contact EA to connect when playing the game on Steam, but by all accounts Spore’s servers are still supported. Since community content is one of the biggest draws to the game, the creative fanbase is keeping it alive.

Spore’s community wouldn’t exist without the expansive creation tools that make the game the underrated classic it is today. Tools for making buildings, vehicles, spaceships, custom adventures and, of course, creatures are incredibly in-depth. Players have mastered these tools to create real life animals, fictional beasts and even entirely original designs.

Even though Spore didn’t live up to the hype behind its release, it’s still one of the best games out there for fans of classic Maxis titles. With so much creativity inherent in the game’s design, Spore remains underrated and creative, persisting 12 years after its initial release with a player base that’s still in love with it in 2020.

Link Source : https://www.cbr.com/spore-maxis-game-underrated-classic/

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