SPORE: Cell
The first stage of SPORE is the Cell stage. There’s a nice little scene that shows a meteor crash into a tidepool, crack open, and reveal your single-celled creature. The gameplay at this point is very simple – eat or be eaten.
You swim around in this tidepool competing with other creatures for food. You can eat plant matter, or other creatures. You click to indicate where your critter should swim to, and that’s where he goes. Reminds me an awful lot of the fl0w game that was so popular on-line not too long ago.
But it is immediately apparent that SPORE is far more limiting than the initial press would have you believe.
Sure, you’re a single-celled organism…so your options are a little limited. I can understand that. I wouldn’t expect to be able to grow arms and legs at this stage of the game. But there are also some fairly arbitrary limitations too…
For example, your mouth pretty much has to go on the front of your critter. Due to the way you move, it is almost impossible to actually eat anything with a mouth on the side or back of your creature. So, with a mouth on the front, all the weaponry becomes purely defensive. You can’t mount a spike on the front to ram someone with, it has to go on the sides/back to deter agression.
And you have to find the parts before you can use them. You have to wander around and locate bits of meteorite or other creatures that have the parts you need, break them open, and then grab the part. So, unless you’ve done a good amount of hunting, your options are very limited.
And you’ll be surrounded by creatures that are, technically, impossible. Maxis is able to create creatures that you cannot. They are able to layer multiple mouths on top of each-other for a chainsaw type effect… They are able to fit a horn inside of a mouth… They are able to produce long, skinny creatures…or big, fat, round creatures… While you are very severely limited in what you are actually able to do with the cell editor.
The gameplay is certainly fun, if a bit simple. It certainly wouldn’t keep me occupied for multiple hours… But it does entertain.