Antispore

Kotaku.com has an article today on a blog that is supposedly done by a religious zealot protesting against Spore and EA' so-called "war on creationism".

http://antispore.com/

Out of curiosity I had a look for myself. To me the blog is clearly a clever attempt to make some money using AdSense ads. You go to the site and the second thing you notice, (after the adult themed Spore pics and vids) is the massive amount of AdSense ads on the page. The author is just trying to cash in on the massive hype of Spore, and to get a bigger audience, added in the religious nut "controversy" stuff. It's clever, and if the guy makes a few bucks from it, more power to him.

UPDATE: I was right, the site turned out to be a joke, one big Rick Roll apparently. Probably scored the author a few cents for his AdSense in the process...

People are debating whether Spore is a game about Evolution or Intelligent Design. Shouldn't be any debate there. The creatures don't actually evolve, and the plethora of penis monsters and other shitty creations totally shoots down the idea that something could have "intelligently designed" actual real-life creatures....

Spore: PC Review

Spore: PC Review

What I Liked:

1. Creating and evolving a creature from a simple organism into a complex one was a great idea.

2. The editors are good and give you a decent amount of options to create creatures, buildings and vehicles.

3. You can share your creations with other people and friends. ( I recommend just sharing with people you know, because seriously, why download a stranger's "Cockasaurus Rex, Titzilla, or Wangaroo" when you can download the ones your friend made instead?)

4. The game is cute enough that your wife/girlfriend/daughter/grandma might play it a couple times before getting bored.


What I Didn't Like:

1. The game is too cartoony and cute for my tastes. I would have liked to have been able to make an animal that was more realistic looking.

2. The Tribal and Civilization stages are nothing but crappy, dumbed-down real-time strategy games.

3. The Space stage totally sucks balls. There's often too much going on for your single spaceship to effectively handle at one time. The short range of your ship in the beginning is pretty annoying too... When I got to the space stage, I no longer wanted to play the game, and didn't feel much like replaying the game, since I knew where I would end up in the end.

4. Whoever designed the paint schemes for the editors needs to be fired. Then raped and executed. The paint schemes you can choose from are shockingly bad.

5. You can't seem to play as any of the creatures you created in the Creature Creator, you can only encounter them.

6. The creatures you create don't actually "evolve". You just get the option of choosing the parts you want, and selling the parts you don't want anymore. You get a final chance to design your creature when you go into Tribal stage, so basically whatever you've been playing the previous stages with, doesn't mean shit because you can completely change the entire creature. You can have a completely different creature throughout every stage. It's more like building with Legos than actual evolution.

7. The casual gamers this game seems to desperately want, will probably be turned off once they reach the space stage. There's too much going on, and the goals are less obvious.


YAY: You can create some pretty interesting looking creatures and vehicles, and share them with friends. +1

GAY: Unfortunately there's not much to do with those neat creatures and vehicles... A buddy and I were checking out each other's creations and having a laugh, and we agreed that it was a shame the game itself wasn't better. Seems a waste to spend so much time creating all that stuff, and then not being able to enjoy it in the game. -1


Final Badassian Scale Rating: -3 CRAPPY


Closing Statement:

Kids and some females may enjoy playing around with this for awhile, but adult gamers who've been gaming for years will be disappointed. Having said that, the PC game market has been so shitty for the last few years, that Spore is guaranteed to be on the best selling list for years to come. Along with the inevitable countless expansions it's sure to have.