I started as a spore.

That's how everyone starts when playing Spore: as a spore. I don't know if you know it or not, but that's kind of a large part of the game.

In case you're unaware of Spore, it's a fancy shiny new fancygame from the maker of SimCity, The Sims, probably SimAnt, SimLife, and Simsville (canceled). In Spore, you make a spore and raise a spore to become a bigger spore and then a bigger spore and soon you have a sporeman and you run a sporeworld and you develop a sporeculture. For 49.99!

If you're more Spore-savvy (Spavvy?) then you've probably already forked over the $10 for the Spore Creature Creator, a demo of a part of the game in which you create sporecreatrues. I know, I know, who would pay for such a thing? Oh right, me. Thanks a lot jerks! We'll see if I ever invite you to any of my parties again.

I probably won't, though, because Spore is so immersive. At least, that's what the back of the box indicates, and if the back of the box is lying to me, I think I've got a pretty good case against them in court. That is, unless they create a society of sporelawyers (splawyers?) to bite, charge, strike, or spit at me.

Anyway, I started as a Spore, and got to play a fancier version of flOw wherein I ate meat particles (what?) and smaller spores to nourish myself. Every once in a while, I ran across an extra "part" (raise eyebrows here) and was able to mate (!!!) with other spores (!!!!!!) to add parts to myself (????????????). That's when I realized that all the parts in the editor modes actually had purposes.

Let me explain. In the Creature Creator, people were finding all kinds of "creative" ways to make their creatures look "good". By "creative" I mean "entire creatures made out of arm flesh," which is about as creepy as it sounds. However, in the real (fake) world, it turns out that these sporetopotties actually need, like, mouths. And things to fight other spores with. And things to move around with. And body parts...to sing with.

You see, once my creature was on land and mobile, he needed to be able to make new friends with which to go killing/singing to other friends with. He also needed to be able to dance and "charm" (whatever those mean) and glide and jump and did I mention, kill other spores.

Also, apparently whatever I did at the beginning of the game means I can't buy the right kind of mouth to make him an omnivore, so he's stuck with these weird omnimouths that I gave him when he was just a little spore (as opposed to a MEGASPORE).

So, instead of turning out pretty awesome, I ended up with my newest creation, a mishmash of crazy body parts and no design sense whatsoever:

Greenus McWhatThe.

Labels: Mac, The Spore Diaries