Spore, the recently released birth child from game legend Will Wright, has been in the press for its problems with DRM, chart topping sales figures and mediocre review scores. What hasn’t been in the press is the unbelievably fun gameplay, imaginative style, near limitless creativity and how much I enjoyed playing it. To capitalize on this stunning success, EA are putting out another title, Spore Creatures. But this is a whole other beast.

Spore Creatures sets you in the body of a newly created creature, straight out of the Cell Stage of the PC version, our new creature washes up on the shores of a new island. You and a friend from your species start taking a look around only to be attacked by a space ship, coming to collect creatures and trees in a similar way you do in the Space Stage of the PC title, your friend gets kidnapped and you start on a quest to try and find him.

Its not Spore is it? I mean that’s the whole idea I know, but it just doesn’t really capture the same kind of idea that Spore is known for which is creative freedom to do whatever you like. Either way that’s the scenario and you venture off starting with creating the creature, naming him and choosing its colours. That’s about as far as customization goes throughout the game, don’t expect to be naming planets, creating groups of your species or finding some epic units in this game. It just doesn’t happen.

It’s a shame a lot of the customization of Spore has been taken out of the DS title because that was one of the main draws of the bigger and better PC title. As you progress through the game you have to get over obstacles and fight other creatures sometimes requiring specific parts. This is probably one of the worst ideas in the game as it forces you to create the creature in a way you may not want to. It feels a lot less like Creature Creator and more like ‘Create what we tell you to’ Creator and what’s the point of that?

This game will challenge even the younger player, which I think the game is designed for, thanks to a clever style of tutorial, implemented poorly. As you play through, various explanations of what to do will slowly flash up showing you how to complete a task such as eating, digging and leveling. However it doesn’t show you how to fight or properly customise your character for the first 3 sections of the game and you can’t do those sections without fighting or equipping your character with parts to fight with. There is a huge lack of explanation which drags the experience of the player down completely, leaving them possibly confused and irritated.

On the nicer side of things, Spore Creatures sports some nice cel shaded 2D graphics which are detailed and coloured well and a fitting soundtrack full of beeps, bloops and squeaks. The interface is intuitive and sets things out well with a full map on the top screen as well as pop up windows and text for missions. Its probably one of the best designs I’ve seen for an adventure game on the DS, but it’s a shame that the UI is one of the games best points.

Closing Comments
it’s a real shame about this game. I really wanted a version of the creature stage that I could take around with me as I enjoyed the MMO style of gameplay of the PC game, the free aspect to do as I wanted. The DS version cuts all of this away and is left with a bare-bones creature creator which doesn’t deliver a fairly tired story that is uneventful and is just used as a force of driving the game forward. It feels like a poor attempt to pull some more money in using the Spore license and I’m sure it will work well for some people. If you’re looking for a slice of Spore on the move, this isn’t what you’re after and I’d probably recommend buying a laptop and a copy of the real Spore over picking this up. That is of course unless you aren’t happy with DRM, but that’s a whole other story…

Score – 5.8

+ Well presented, good graphics and sound
+ Intuitive user interface
+ You can create your creature….

- …but you will be forced to change them no matter what you do
- Story is drab and poor
- Doesn’t encapsulate the spore experience