I have a head cold and the antihistamines I took keep have me nodding off. I have three different topics I’d like to talk about and hardly enough energy for one. I’ll go with a topical one: Spore.

The Galactic Adventures pack is coming out sometimes soon. I wouldn’t know because EA’s marketing isn’t accurate. For the last two months, I’ve seen banners and ads saying it was ‘available now’ and each time I clicked through I ended up at a pre-order page. (Wiki says it came out June 23 – see, this is kinda, sorta topical!)

This is about original Spore though, and my opinion of it can be summed up thusly: Creativity is no panacea for mediocrity. Just because a game is innovative, genre defying, creative, inspired, artistic – whatever synonym you prefer – does not mean it’s a good game. Even if those same elements can turn a good game into an excellent game.

Which leads to the question, ‘Does a game have to be good to be worthy or important?’ No, not at all. Enter the Dragon is a bad film, but it’s the film that introduced American audiences to Bruce Lee and quality martial artist choreography. Before Enter the Dragon, most Hollywood fight scenes were Western style shootouts or akin to Captain Kirk vs. Gorn.

A c-game[1] is a form of media as well as an art form as well as (sometimes) an interactive narrative form as well as (sometimes) a social experience as well as system the user navigates using heuristic devices. The last is what makes a game a game, and when I say a game is good or bad, that’s major element I’m evaluating.

In a number of reviews, I’ve read that Spore is not one but five games. I’d argue that it’s two games: the pre-space age and the space age. The cell, creature, tribal, and civilization stages [2] are a single game and a bad one at that. The goal in each stage is to grow, you can choose to do so violently or not, and the way you implement your goal is by gathering a resource and buying objects. In the cell and creature stage, these are body parts. In the tribal stage, these are clothing, children, and buildings. In the civilization stage, these are vehicles and buildings.

There are many excellent games built around this core concept: gather resources in order to buy a beneficial improvement. In Civilization IV, a strategy game, I try to gather metals, food, and money so I can by buildings. In Diablo, an action RPG, I kill things to gather XP so I can buy powers and abilities.




The early stages of Spore never go beyond the core concept. It’s about as bare bones as you get and the lack of complexity, of even simple give or take, means you can go through these early stages on cruise control.

I’m not the first view the simplicity of the early sections as problematic, but I’ve notices that many believe this decision was made to appeal to casual gamers. The hardcore/casual schism is ridiculous and mostly perpetuated by ‘real’ or ‘hardcore’ gamers who view the mere existence of games that don’t cater to their tastes as a type of sacrilege. Maxis might have ‘dumbed down’ Spore for casual gamers, but I doubt it.

I play casual games, my mother plays casual games, my mother’s friend plays casual games, and my mother’s friends daughter and *her* daughter both play casual games, often together. Nothing they play is as boring as the first four levels of Spore. Games like Bejeweled or Plants vs Zombies are simple, but still very engaging.

Moving on to the Space Age and we find a semi-decent space civ sim, but still not as good as half-a-dozen other games on the market.

The bottom line is that if it weren’t for the creature/building/vehicle creator, this game would have hit the bargain bin a month after it was released.



Problematically, the creation tool isn’t a game, it’s a tool. It’s fun to play around with. It’s also fun to eat dinner, go to a movie, or doodle on my PC tablet, but while it’s nice when fun and games meet, one does not imply the other. There are parts of the creation tool that relate to the game as you design your creature’s body and pick various parts to buy, but in itself, this isn’t a game.

This makes things difficult for me. If I’m judging a game, do I go by the total experience, or just the game? It’s not that unusual a quandary. If I go out to a restaurant, and get a great view of the ocean, watch the chef prepare the entrée while flames leap up around her, and have great conversation with my friend, but the food itself is lousy, how good was the meal? There are people who love the creation tool. (And not just because they can make a giant dickasaurus) I don’t enjoy it, but I can see how it’s unique and interesting and an impressive feat.

A game does not have to be good to be worthy or important. I’m not sure if this is either of those either. No other developers seem interested in exploring a multi-generational game right now and user-end content creation tools haven’t changed. More accurately, Spore is riding a larger trend in letting users create content.

Ultimately, Spore might be an evolutionary dead-end when it comes to gaming.

1 - Computer or console game
2 - It’s inaccurate to suggest that a tribe isn’t a form of civilization. A bit of unintended ethnocentrism there.