Spore Preview

Spore is coming - and it's like nothing we've ever seen.

Ever see that BBC programme GCSE Bitesize? Sure you have. They take all that crazy physics and chemistry stuff and break it down into manageable chunks so that it's easier to digest and, hopefully, understand. We're a simple lot here at VideoGamer.com. So for a game like Spore, which is just humongous and full of tonnes of clever little things, we're going to give it the GCSE Bitesize treatment and break it down.

Spore's like no other God-game you ever played. Instead of taking control of a civilisation, a race or even a planet, you're controlling life, and the evolution of that life right from the beginning to the very end (Spore can actually end, if you were wondering). We're talking about primordial soup single cell organism stuff right up to space colonisation, and everything in between.

Spore is divided up into five "phases" - Cell, Creature, Tribe, Civilisation and Space. These five phases chart the evolution of life, a life you have the chance to create, mould and control in a way never before seen in a video game. Let's start at Cell. EA Maxis likens this phase of Spore to classic arcade game Pacman, and you can see why. From a top-down perspective, you take your newly created, super-cute single-cell organism and start eating bits of... stuff (green dots). You do this by moving your organism around the primordial soup, avoiding bigger, threatening organisms and, well, eating as much as possible. The more you eat, the bigger you get. The idea of course is to evolve, and that's exactly what you're doing.

It's a strangely therapeutic affair, minding your own business as you take your organism casually swims about. EA Maxis has splashed a cartoon paint job on the Cell phase - your organism might have big eyes, make cute noises and generally look like something you'd buy your little sister for Christmas. But there's an underlying threat - other organisms can and will try to eat you, if they have a mouth, and can kill you. Don't worry though, you'll respawn and carry on regardless.

Spore is divided up into five phases, each a different game genre.

Eventually you'll evolve to a stage where you'll be able to leave the water and venture inland. This is called the Creature phase. Here, things play out a bit like classic RPG Diablo, in that you'll either be running about inland communicating with other creatures, gaining new skills, abilities and levelling up, or, well, eating them, if you have a mouth (your creature can be a carnivore or a herbivore). The view in the Creature phase switches to third person, with abilities, offensive and peaceful, mapped to the number keys. The super cute cartoon wash remains, and this transfers over into what you can have your creature do. It's up to you to decide if you want to be aggressive and take on everything in sight - like you other creatures have hit points, and each attack takes off a certain amount. Or you might want to play it like Gandhi and try to communicate with other creatures, either by mimicking what they do or by dancing. Again, everything is fairly slow-paced, and casual. If you do attack a certain type of creature, you will be at war with them and they will be hostile. If you develop your relationship with other creatures, however, they will become your friends. Die, and you will resurrect at your nest, where some of your buddies remain.

The next stage in evolution is Tribe. EA Maxis likens this phase to The Sims. Here you control a small number of your creatures as they start to wield tools, build huts and co-exist with other tribes. Spore starts to take on a real-time-strategy feel here, with a point, click and drag over units control system and limited building features. Again, it's up to you how you interact with other Tribes - you can be aggressive and invest in upgrades like axes, maces and other basic weaponry, or you can befriend other tribes and co-exist. Of course we decided to try and kill everything - here we controlled about five creatures in a squad as we completed specific tasks - like killing a certain number of enemies. Your creatures will also mate - shown by floating love hearts - run off into your hut, have some fun and produce a baby. The babies then grow up, and your tribe expands. It's evolution baby.

After Tribe you've got the Civ phase, which, you might imagine, is like Sid Meier's classic Civilisation. Here, you have control over your creatures as a race, building up cities, producing vehicles, buildings and attempting to control your planet either through aggressive means or diplomatic means. This phase is as close to a traditional RTS as the game gets - with unit selection, movement, resource gathering and combat that will be instantly familiar to many PC gamers. You can clearly see rival civilisations and their territory borders from a mini-map, as well as battles and unit movement. Again, we took the aggressive route, building a number of ground vehicles with missiles that we used to pummel a rival nearby city. It wasn't long though before our city was completely destroyed, and, it being our only one, ended our civilisation.

Following Civ is the game's final phase, Space, which EA says is like a straight-up MMO except without other players. Here things really open up. You can explore the universe, terraform entire planets with a toilet space ship called the Big John, and engage in galactic conquest. We're told that while the game won't end if you don't want it to, there is a main ultimate quest that you can embark on which will end the game if you complete it. As you meet and interact with other alien races you will get clues to the ultimate quest. But then you might want to ignore them - no-one wants life to end after all.