Darkspore Review: The New Generation of Darkness

Let me just let everyone know that I loved Spore. The concept was simply amazing, and the gameplay was absolutely tops. Several happy hours were spent evolving one creature after another, playing God as it were with my happy little av-vies who were cheerfully bloodthirsty slaughtering everything in their path. Well, not completely true, but gamers don’t love to read about peace loving aliens who diplomat their way into supremacy.

I was entranced enough that I wanted to play Darkspore. As a stand-alone game I have to say that I really liked it. The soundtrack was absolutely super, very reminiscent of Fresh Aire or Manneheim Steamroller, new age groups that I really enjoy. I found playing the game calming, and not only because of the great relaxation that I get when using ‘creative visualization’  while pulverizing my enemies.

I found the gameplay to be very linear in nature, not really like the ‘sandbox’ nature of most current rpg’s. As someone spoiled by games that hide multiple Easter eggs in out-of-the-way areas, I found this to be slightly annoying. Exploration in this game is pretty limited. For those of you hoping to evolve your own spores, the game doesn’t allow that either. The game is a sophisticated avatar-builder, though, allowing you effectively endless customizations of your chosen avatars as the game progresses. You attach customizations of weapons, defenses, etc., through the edit option. You pick up dna (used to buy customizations) through the missions, and pick up new modifications either on the missions, or through the store (which uses your dna points to purchase equipment and other modifications).

I enjoyed playing the beta, and spent about ten hours clearing the darkspore from planets. I didn’t, however, go and drop $60 on the game. I think if I had a son between the ages of 10 and 16 I probably would have bought it, but alas, I’m full up on daughters and nary a boy-child in my house.

Also, at the risk of simply beating a dead horse to death, if I could have spent the $60 and installed the game on every computer in my house I probably would have been more likely to do so. EA’s insistence on single-computer licensing remains a sticking point for me when I have four people in my home to buy games for. If we didn’t have consoles I dunno what we’d do.

All in all, it’s a really intensive paper-doll game with some combat/pvp options. I’d buy the soundtrack to help me relax, and if the game had been more reasonably priced I’d probably have picked it up. After the huge universe given to us with Spore, Darkspore really was more of a disappointment than anything.  As a stand-alone game I might have bought it.  As a sequel, it simply didn’t measure up.
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