Trial Spore Creature Creator is So So
Like many gamers out there, I’ve been following Spore news for quite some time. I was one of those who practically salivated at the tidbits they threw at us during E3s. Well, that behavior stopped pretty quickly when it was apparent the game wasn’t going to be coming out “soon”. I still followed the news but I had other games to review.
Now the Creature Creator has been released and the game itself is on the horizon.
I loaded up the Creature Creator and went about making my first creature. Frankly I felt like I was doing the demo I’ve seen before. You start with a “blob”, well, a blob with a spine. I guess that makes it bolder than some humans we know?
I went to my choice of mouths since the Spore Guide told me that picking a mouth was one of the most important things to choose from when making a creature since it determined whether or not your creature was a carnivore, omnivore or herbivore. Unfortunately in this limited set, only carnivore mouths were available. I chose one with +5 bite strength and +2 sing. I figured it couldn’t hurt. Well at least not me anyway.
I went through the rest of the process and ended up with a purple tinted creature I named a Rufusaur and added two baby Rufusaurs and put them through the limited actions they could do while in the trial Creature Creator.
That’s about all I did.
It was… disappointing. Now, hold on folks, let’s look at some facts. 1. Creature Creator is just that, a tool to create a creature, not actually play the game with it. 2. I’m a graphic designer who has used a few 3D apps before. Bells and whistles and even moveable vertebrae models are not new to me. 3. I’m a veteran MMORPG player and as such am used to customizable character creation screens. Add that all up and I’m just not blown away with this tool, even when I end up with a fully animated and properly rendered creature which can flip and laugh and roar at my command.
I’m still cautiously excited about Spore. I do like the fact that I can create creatures in advance and use them in the game, but until I get into the actual game I’m just not that excited about creating creatures I can’t test out in the true Spore environment.
Your enjoyment may vary and The Spore Creature Creator is publically available for download here starting June 17th.
You can also buy the full version of the Creature Creator as a direct download. PC version available now, Mac version coming “soon”.
EDIT: I revisited the Creature Creator today and made a second creature. Here’s a video of my “Grass Golem”:
July 23rd, 2008 at 8:40 pm
Good review–helpful to me since I am still debating whether to install this. I tried to upgrade my MacBook to the latest OSX version, but it actually totally messed up my HD. Had to wipe the drive. Lame. So, I’m understandably hesitant, despite the second try to install the latest OSX going just fine. Is it worth it? Sounds like not. Sounds like I should just wait.
What’s also depressing is the news that Spore for DS and iPhone are both mini-versions of the full Spore. Lame. What’s the point of bothering with the smaller platforms if you’re not going to take them seriously?
I dunno–I was so psyched for Spore in the beginning. I had to stop myself from buying a Spore T-shirt when they became available. I told myself “What if the game ends up sucking?” Now I’m glad I didn’t drop the cash on the shirt. I’m going to be waiting for sure.
I do like your Grass Golem, though. How did you shoot that video? Was it done inside of the SCC? Or did you use some sort of screencasting app?