I was never really good at strategy games.

I think my first encounter with strategy games was on this CD-ROM I got with this package of Hansen's juice once (or something, it was sponsored by them and I don't really remember where the CD came from). It had some pretty good demos, some creepy ones (at least, Bad Mojo was creepy when I was like 10), and a demo for some Heroes of Might and Magic game. I liked it because you could move knights around on horses and stuff. I hated it because I didn't have any idea what was supposed to be going on.

Of course, it's 12 years later now, and since then I've attempted to play strategy games every couple of months. I've got enough problems with the Advance Wars series, and I've tried Command and Conquer demos and the like and I've never really caught the bug, I guess. The closest I've gotten is CivRev on DS, and even then, I'm only playing on one-level-above-tutorial-mode. There's something about commanding units that's not as exciting as actually doing stuff.

Imagine, then, my surprise, when my poor little clan of Greenus McWhatThe changed into a warrior tribe of Greenus McWhatThe, and was plopped into the middle of a simplified RTS. You see, every decision you make in the game actually effects (affects? EFX?) the next stage of the game, and while I started this stage with the Adaptable (read: middle-ground) trait, I was soon entrenched in battle.

First, of course, you need to arm your spore army (Sporemy?) like so:



Also, a few revisions since last time: different mouth, and the poison spitter is now mounted on their hands (so it's like they shoot webs of poison, like Poisonspiderman or something) and oh yeah a ton of armor.

Soon, though, our enemies moved into the territory. The game informed me that I could give them a gift, or defeat them in battle. I was still getting used to the controls, and I didn't actually know how to give them a gift yet, and--let's face it, my creatures have poison spitters on their flippin' hands. So, obviously, we went into battle and emerged victorious. This strategy didn't always work, as four more tribes appeared out of nowhere--some stronger than others. No longer were Singing and Dancing and Charming and Posing viable options. Instead, we used axes and fire and medics and spears and strategy and war and like three losses to the pink tribe. THE PINK TRIBE. Who do those guys think they are? Better than me at war? Probably.

After many many losses and births of babies, the Greenus McWhatThe tribe wiped out the rest of the planet, as any good warrior tribe should. Coming up on day 3: the Civilization stage. What kind of crazy antics can go down in a civilization whose main city hall resembles a large lantern?



Stay tuned.

Labels: Mac, The Spore Diaries