The stars look very different today.

Just one day ago, we were building creepy mutated Sporemen. Two days ago, we were conquering the world. Three days ago, we were just a spore.

Throughout these days, Spore has challenged me to make decisions about life, the universe, and flagella. The game forces you to answer such questions as "Is it wrong to eat a baby?", to which the response is, "Not unless you're an herbivore." Which I don't usually agree with, but if it'll save me from being trampled by 50-foot tall sporecreatures, well then, sorry, babies. You'll understand when you get older--oh wait no hahaha!

Now, however, I have entered the final stage of Spore--the Space stage. This is the stage I've heard the most positive things about, and I was eager to get here. And let me tell you...it delivers. Space (space space) is the place. First of all, you're now directly controlling a spaceship, instead of merely assigning units to do your bidding. However, flying a regular UFO is boring, so you get to design (!!!) your own ship. I wanted to make the Axiom Starliner, from WALL•E:



...and I ended up designing the Haxiom Starliner.



You control your ship with the mouse or keyboard, and are finally able to leave orbit. Doing so reveals that you're in a solar system, and zooming out even further reveals other solar systems. Your ship can only move so many parsecs at once, so in order to get around, you need to hop from system to system (or upgrade your engine as the game progresses). Zooming out totally shows you the swirly spiral galaxy from the game's main menu screen, which is also in the Spore logo. See? Now you're part of the galaxy. You started out playing flOw, and now you're flying around like an idiot in a fake Axiom Starliner. Isn't life grand?

This is where the game reaches total awesomeality (is that a word i think it is). You are now able to communicate with empires stationed on entirely different planets, establish trade routes with them, form alliances, conquer them, hire them to attack other empires, and so much more. It's like Civilization mode, with less stress on immediately taking over everything. As in, other empires don't randomly attack you as often as other nations did in Civilization mode, although they do get mad at you for entering their airspace. Okay, there's no air in space, so...spacespace. However, you can curry their favor by accomplishing tasks for them, which are pretty neat. You can abduct animals, shoot them, erase their minds, terraform their land, paint their skies, or just steal their treasures. Space also leads you to my favorite thing to do in Spore, which is backstab your allies.

Example: I teamed up with the Yellow Empire (these empires actually do have names, but are all assigned colors again--and since I can't remember made up names of 200000000000000000 empires, we're sticking with the colors) and have established three trade routes with them. Now, when I try to gain the approval of the hostile Pink Empire (those jerks!!) by flying to one of the many planets in the Yellow Empire and shooting 6 infected animals, the yellow guys get a little ticked off--but since I'm supporting their economy a lot and they like me (they really like me) they stay allied with me--and I still have the use of one of their spacecraft to help me do my dirty work. It's all very backstabby and political and amazing, and once you get the hang of it, you can really work it to your advantage.

You also can sell spice directly to other empires, by delivering it to them. Different colored spice is worth more in different empires, so you've got to manage how much you're selling to which planets in order to maximize your profits. You can also buy spice from other planets and resell it, so it's up to you if you want to invest your Sporebucks in Green Spice. I'm still getting used to that mechanic, but it's great fun.

Combat is a little difficult, at least I think it is, because I only have one ally ship at the moment and we're taking on entire fleets of fighters at a time. However, I can manage smaller combat missions, which are exciting. Many missions come with a time limit, so if you're quick enough, you can pop back over to your home world, recharge your ship, and fly back into battle. I don't think that's what you're supposed to do, but if you can manage it, give it a shot.

All of this seems to be quite the overwhelming experience. So much, in fact, that even after spending a day in Space, I still feel like I've barely scratched the surface. I'm nowhere near halfway through, and then, who knows what'll happen? Maybe the universe will explode. Maybe the Greenus McWhatThe Empire will invent their own version of the Large Hadron Collider and create a black hole that sucks everything into it.

At least there isn't Autosave.

Labels: Mac, The Spore Diaries