Spore: The Sum of its Parts?

Everyone right now is throwing a fit over the DRM issues on Spore, and has become a huge talking about amongst gaming journalists and bloggers. But I don't really care that much about it because its just pandering between the people who want money and the people that don't want to spend it. And yes I am referencing Penny Arcade.

No, I want to talk about the game of Spore itself. Now I do understand every one's complaints. Most of the stages are very simplistic and aren't very compelling in of themselves. The only stage that is actually interesting is the space stage but even then its very repetitive which isn't good when your the longest stage in the game. All in all Spore is nothing more than an elaborate game of Play-Doh.

However I don't think the game is any of those things but the conglomerate of all of those aspects. The game may be split up in separate stages and the creation tools do seem slightly separate from the rest of the game but I viewed it was one huge game. Everything I've read about people's reaction to Spore is the fact they view each part as if it were a separate game. When I play the game I viewed each part more like a level instead of a separate game.

Perception is relative and I think that is the main difference between the people that enjoy the game and those that don't. That's not saying not liking the game is bad and this is more of a blanket statement on most games out there. Different people enjoy games for different reasons and Spore brings that to the forefront with its unique structure.

"Steve Holt!" - Steve Holt from Arrested Development