System: PC
Dev: Maxis
Pub: Electronic Arts
Release: Sep. 7, 2008
Players: 1
ESRB Rating: Everyone 10+
Preview by Tom Becker

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Review Rating Legend
1.0 - 1.9 = Avoid
2.0 - 2.4 = Poor
2.5 - 2.9 = Average
3.0 - 3.4 = Fair
3.5 - 3.9 = Good
4.0 - 4.4 = Great
4.5 - 4.9 = Must Buy
5.0 = The Best

To use the industry jargon, almost all the content in Spore is "procedurally generated." This means that using a simple series of basic controls - the editing functions in the game - determines the content of the game. A desert world populated by six-armed zebra fish that live in houses that look like eggplants would exist only because the player's choices had so determined. This is a real windfall in gaming, as the demand for increased content has caused development budgets to skyrocket. The creation of animation for the latest generation of Sims games alone requires tens of thousands of individual animations created by an army of designers. With procedural generation, not only is the onus no longer strictly on the developers for providing all the content, but there are as many possibilities for unique content as there are users.

Unlike MMOs like World of Warcraft, the worlds of Spore are generated by individual users rather than a team of developers. These worlds are freely shared among users connected to the Internet, and can be explored and manipulated. The most convenient aspect of this is that one player's actions will not affect the worlds of another player. If I decide to blow up your entire solar system, the copy on your computer is still intact. As you develop your world and I interact with the version on my computer, we share back and forth, augmenting each other's experience without damaging it.

Spore not only looks like a lot of fun, but represents a paradigm shift in gaming. Rather than ballooning budgets and amassing ever-larger teams of developers, games like Spore will allow users to generate content that is not only endlessly diverse, but also custom-built to their own specifications. The developers at Maxis seem to have made the content development not only central to Spore but fun in and of itself. There seem to be two kinds of games on the market these days: competitive games and toys. Competitive games like MMOs and multiplayer FPS appeal to the hardcore gamers who are more interested in dominating other players online. Toy-like games like The Sims and Animal Crossing are based more in exploration of the world, sharing content, and enjoying the world for the experience as the central goals. The best of these games have proven they can attract the widest variety of players, from non-gamers to even the most seasoned players. They are easy enough to use and dynamic enough in their content to expand not only their audience but what the public expects from video games in general. Spore is at the crest of this new wave in gaming, and it bodes well for the future of the industry and the enjoyment of gamers everywhere.

By Tom Becker
CCC Freelance Writer

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