Well, I've been playing Spore. It's an interesting animal: both toy and game, linear and sandbox at turns, single player and massively multiplayer. for my money, the creators are the most interesting aspects of the package. Through them, creatures, vehicles, and buildings can be created, customized, and shared through the Spore universe. As a creator, you build creatures or things and then share them. Once shared, they may appear in other people's games. It's a great feeling to get a message from a stranger that they encountered your homemade creature on some distant planet in a distant game. Unfortunately, so far, Spore doesn't provide enough depth and control to really take advantage of our creativity.
To be sure, there are plenty of physical choices to be had. All it takes is a short glance at the Sporepedia to see the width and breadth of people's imaginations brought to virtual life. However, this creativity is only skin deep. There is so much we can't do, such as set behaviors, habitats, attitudes, etc. Is my critter a social animal, travelling in packs, or does he wander alone? Is he nocturnal? Is he aggressive or passive? Do they live if forests or plains, mountains or valleys? Do they migrate or stay put? I'd love to have control of not only what my creature looks like in another game but how it behaves in other games. Right now, I can't do it.
Even though we're essentially gods leading our creatures from single cells all the way to space, even though we can manipulate how our creatures evolve, our scope is limited. I'd like to be able to build my creatures then let them go and watch. Instead, often I'm embroiled in the minutia of empire building that, in this game, I don't fundamentally care to do. Unlike in The Sims, I must personally shepherd my creature at all times. I am trapped by my avatar.
I hope, via expansion, that such vistas of less limited godhood will be opened up, in which I can really stir up nature's pot and watch it coalesce without worrying about such mundane concerns as feeding a handful of critters, building cities, or balancing alliances between petty empires. This is what I want and I still hope, at some stage, Spore will deliver it. Still, it's not bad fun as it us. It just could be more, much more.
Here are a couple of my creations (works in progress all):
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