Spore: First Looks

Education, at least in the formal sense, ground to a halt today as our copy of SPORE arrived from Amazon.

Amusingly, Spore was first teased when The Boy was nine. He's been waiting for this game approximately a quarter of his life. He definitely had the last-minute jitters about it. Would it be fun? Would it be that fun? I've made him aware--he was shocked that new triple-A title games cost $50--that we only do this rarely, and he was conspicuously grateful.

He's played through two and a portion of games so far, and he's liking what he sees. Of the various levels, he's said the "civilization" level is the least interesting to him. He's compared it to Populous: The Beginning, but not favorably.

The bloom may come off the rose quickly; we'll see. His judgment at the end of the day was that we could've waited till it was a bit cheaper, but he was glad to have his curiosity satisfied. He's found it entertaining, but he wants more meat--that is, he's expecting expansions or sequels.

This is, of course, a serious problem with computer gaming. A designer will come up with some good mechanics but not quite polish the game enough to make it a masterpiece. And then the sequel either never comes or screws up the mechanics rather than improving them.

More to come....