Spore - Who is getting it?

[Crandaeolon]

antispore.com Ding! Round one.

This entire game is propaganda aimed directly at our children to teach them evolution instead of creationism, or “intelligent design” if you go for stupid PC terms.

The object of the game is to evolve from a “spore” into demon-like intelligent space creatures that violently take over the galaxy.

Well, ok. This kind of phenomenon would be way more interesting if the game was good, or at least decent. Unfortunately, Spore isn't even a coherent game - just a collection of minigames that share similar content. I don't feel that the game merits writing a real review, but here's a quick rundown:

Cell Stage (2D "shoot-em-up")

+ "Charming"
+ Entertaining
+ Easy to play
+ Suitably short for its simplicity
- Too Simple

Creature Stage (3D action game)

+ Some Charm still left
+ Occasionally entertaining
- Repetitive
- Shallow

Tribal stage (RTS)

- Repetitive
- Shallow
- Charm is gone (zoomed-out view, outfit customization is laughable)
- Insufficient controls (no control groups?!)

Civilization stage (RTS)

- Repetitive
- Shallow
- Charm is gone (zoomed-out view)
- Insufficient controls (no control groups)
- Some balance problems

Space stage (Action 4X)

+ Some charm is back (you get to deal with funky aliens and play around with lesser lifeforms)
+ More depth than other stages
- Somewhat repetitive
- Insufficient information (it's a race against other Civs, but your situation is difficult to ascertain)
- AI uses different rules! (compounds with the insufficient information problem)
- Badly paced (it's slow, and you might spend a lot of time in a bad position without knowing it)
- Lack of automation
- Control scheme uses different conventions than Creature Stage

Also, one thing that somewhat bothered me is that there's no evolutionary connection between creature generations. A tiny slug can become a four-armed flying dinosaur in one generation, which feels a bit silly. There's also no real connection with form and function; for example, I made a little pink blob-thing with full scores in all combat abilities and no visible protuberances.

That said, yes, the editors are quite powerful and easy to use. The editors and systems for sharing content are the main draws of this software toy (not game IMO), but even those suffer from the detached perspective of the latter stages.

[TevashSzat]

This entire game is propaganda aimed directly at our children to teach them evolution instead of creationism, or “intelligent design” if you go for stupid PC terms.

The object of the game is to evolve from a “spore” into demon-like intelligent space creatures that violently take over the galaxy.

Wow.....that is just ridiculous. I mean who really actually thinks like that? (Even the fundamentalists) With that logic, the whole government is controlled by the evil left wing because schools teach evolution and that George Bush/ Dick Cheney is actually secretly controlled by Democrats because no responsible Republican can let evolution be taught

[Mikeus Caesar]

I think antispore.com is just a troll. And even if it isn't, they're dumb. As far as i can see, Spore is more of an endorsement for intelligent design.

EDIT: Or in the case of some creatures, un-intelligent design...