I noticed the reviews everywhere for Spore are, to say the least, awful. I picked up the game and figured there was some lame-as-crack DRM on there (low and behold, the first and only game I will ever buy with these measures as I can just 'borrow' the game without spending $50 until they patch this crap out). So, what do I read in the reviews? 'This game blows' and 'horrible graphx' and 'what happened?'. I read about Spore before it came out. Is it everything I thought it would be? Yeah, so far, and I haven't even hit the good stuff yet. It's not a perfect game, and yes, sometimes the graphics are a bit outdated, but I don't play video games to show off one developers ubber programming skills over the other. I don't care if all my games are colorful, cartoony, or whatnot. I only care if the game is fun, most of all. Spore is fun. It has some boring moments, but it doesn't seem any different than waiting your turn in a nice week long game of Civilization.
What's the fad? Complaining about anything popular. I complain about things, sure. Like Halo 3. I just don't get it, but I don't complain because I thought it was going to be something else, or because the graphics aren't super HD. I just don't see why that game is revolutionary in any way. It's fun, but it's a typical shooter in all honesty. I play it, but not as much as some. However, I never looked at it and said "This game is popular, therefore I hate". I can see, in a sense when things are popular, they end up being dumb. Would you like to hear another "there is no cake" joke? I certainly don't, but I appreciate the comedy in Portal, and I still recommend that game to people. I never hated the game; I hated the people on the internet trying to pull a Carlos Mencia and copy something funny to be funny. It just doesn't work!
But the complaining... it's everywhere anything is popular or hyped. Spore was a big release this year, so people automatically say it sucks. I guarantee if took the reviews and lined them up with the people that owned the game, the complaining majority would have never even played it, just watched some YouTube videos. That's what's overall annoying. I remember just a few months ago when I saw Dark Knight, I was talking with some friends and that one guy you don't really like anyway said, "It was alright... Not as good as X.". Well, nothing in the world is more amazing than Rushmore (my favorite flick) but that doesn't make things crap in comparison! But it's like it's a disease in our human flesh to want to be different. There's always that guy that says "Na!" when everybody else is saying "Yay!". Anyway, if you haven't tried Spore, and you want a game that seems like it has more lasting flavor than Double Mint gum, check it out. Be warned: there is DRM, but much like the past games that had the install limit, it will be patched.
-dryvby, destroying the universe with Nibblonians
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There's always the fans, then the backlash, and then sometimes the backlash against that, and so on.
Now, on the internet, it just all happens 100x FASTER, with more people.
Welcome to the human race where everyone hates the cool shit.
Especially when the cool shit has hyped everyone up to believe it was cool shit for years then when released was discovered not to be cool shit but, in fact, be stupid DRM-riddled broken-gameplay shit.
It is best described as a "Create-a-Sandbox" game. Most reviewers were expecting a game like Halo, etc.
I really wanted to like the game, but for some reason I get really, really bored after the cell stage. That and I sorta expected something deeper during the tribal and creature stages.
Wow. Did you even read the reviews? People don't like it because it's just not that fucking good. Trying to immerse yourself in the depth this game features is akin to attempting to swim in a puddle. If you think you 'haven't hit the good stuff yet' when you've reached space, you're going to be disapointed when you find out there isn't anything else to that broken ass stage.
I installed it, played through to 10+ hours of the space stage, wrote my impressions and didn't find anything that justified the hype EA has been pumping out for this thing.
It's 5 Fisher Price takes on different genres with a bit of collect-em-up sprinkled in.
This is why no one can like Oblivion or Battlefield any more.
Welcome to the Internet...?
I thought about this a lot at PAX. When I was sitting waiting for the Ken Levine opening keynote, there were screens to the right and left of the stage showing previews for games. The two people behind me ripped on each and every one. I couldn't help but think: why are you here if you're so goddamned busy being negative about every game offered? It pissed me off quite a bit.
Complaining about popular things is all I know. If you take that away I have to complain about actual world issues.
Your friend obviously can't be trusted if he didn't think The Dark Knight lived up to every bit of hype it got.
As for Spore? It too had monumental hype, for many years now, and the problem with that is, even if it's a competent game, it's very hard to live up to that hype.
If you're American or think America is cool, you try to show your "independent thinking" by hating what's popular and searching for the obscure, liking it, then pumping up the "I am cool" points by saying "I heard that band before you did."
But plenty of people I respect say Spore is overrated, so I'm thinking this isn't exactly a Halo kind of thing.
personally, I love Spore
You can't be popular without being hated
Spore is a game for the masses, a game for the casual crowd. It has features that hardcore gamers MAY enjoy, but really it will be enjoyed the most by the casual crowd.
Case in point: My wife fucking loves it. She plays Spore all the time.
It's too simple for me though.
I think part of this is because the games industry has become pretty successful at translating hype into popularity. If you look at any of the really big games (I'm not talking about the Braids or the Castle Crashers), they all have had a huge PR machine churning out stuff for years before the games actual release. Some companies don't talk about the game directly (Halo ARGs, crazy commercials), and get excellent results. Others do their hype by proclaiming that their upcoming game is going to be the greatest thing in the history of ever (Dennis Dyack, Peter Molyneux, Will Wright for Spore), and they seem to get into more trouble because they can't deliver on all the impossible/ridiculous things they promised.
Also, shit reviews? Metacritic tells me that it's averaging a mid-80's score. Not too shabby.
It is so easy to find faults in something, even if they are negligible or not even there. People think its okay to just shit all over everything because it makes them sound like a fucking expert.
If people took as much effort finding a game's strengths rather than focusing on its flaws we'd probably have some better games out there.
I love Spore as it is. It might be shallow, but if I want depth I go play Morrowind.
Everybody cross your fingers for amazing mods.
+1 for the Carlos Mencia stab.
I grew up in an era where it was cool to not care about anything, so this kind of "I hate it because a lot of other people like it" thing isn't really new to me.
I don't really care though, I mean... whatever. Nevermind.
@I heard that band before you did.
Ha! I remember when Modest Mouse had that song Float On, I loved it cus it was different, but low and behold, living in California with all those rotten hippies, I heard "Dude, they used to be cool...". So I downloaded their older stuff and it was almost the EXACT same stuff. Freakin' morons.
I played Spore for a couple hours and loved it. My main gripes with the game are not being able to stay in one part of the game for however long you want and the DRM. The DRM only made me decide to not buy it until it's fixed. But I enjoyed the cell phase of the game and got annoyed when I'd get forced into the next level of the phase whether or not I wanted to move on. The creature phase looks to be the same. I'm dreading the civilization phase since I tend to suck badly at RTS.