Dana Jongewaard of GameTap writes: While the PC and Mac versions of Spore aim to open up the whole universe, Spore Creatures on DS narrows that focus back down to the creature phase. Think of it as an RPG with a touch of Nintendogs: You create your character and then nurture and grow it as you explore this world.
There are also over 60 different badges that you can earn throughout the game for completing various missions or goals. Badges carry their own currency, which you can use to purchase body parts if you don't feel like hunting for them. You can also spend badge points to unlock cheat codes that do silly in-game things; for example, one such cheat gives all the characters in the game gigantic eyes. Fortunately, these cheats have an on/off switch, so you aren't stuck with big-eyed creatures for the rest of your playing.
Spore Creatures doesn't have the grand scope of the PC game, but it still looks like it will offer a nice, compact RPG experience when it comes out this fall.
Insidegamer.nl: If Darwin had been a game developer, he would develop Spore Creatures .. In this game you explore with your homemade Spore being the wonderful world and try to evolve.
"Now it has become apparent that for all EA's reputation destroying efforts to ensure punters bought Spore, they may have actually acted to entice gamers to pirate the game. Forced between a choice of downloading the game for free, or effectively renting it from EA, punters voted with their clicking finger." - gameplayer reports
That picture is kinda wrong, considering the amount of illegal downloads of games like Spore I think we ('we' being gamers in general) are screwing the DRM up the backside, not the other way around.
Nice image, I didn't buy Spore and I'm glad because above DRM the game was hugely overrated.
Hugely overrated would probably be an understatement.
Gosh, that game was disappointing.
That game really needed more game to it. Creation stuff was great but it should have been secondary to game play not first.
About writes: "A spin-off from Will Wright's massive world-builder, Spore Creatures for the DS keeps the creature creating but loses all the awe of Spore. With a seemingly random storyline and a dull fighting mechanic, this is a weak interpretation of one of the biggest games of the year."
Pros
* Spore Creatures has a lovely, comic book-like aesthetic that plays with 2D and 3D.
* Adding wacky body parts to your creature is fun -- for a time.
* The DS's WiFi connection lets you show off particularly crazy creatures.
Cons
* Boiling down a huge, open game like Spore into a tiny adventure just doesn't work.
* Storyline feels random and tacked on.
* The fighting mechanic (i.e. scribbling on the screen with your stylus) is boringly simple.
