Well my I've spent close to a week playing Spore and I must say I am enjoying the game. Overall the game play is smooth and fluid. I have made the evolution from cell to Interstellar citizens and it was fun all the way through. I have yet to conquer the galaxy but I have a feeling this is where the real game begins ... much like WoW or AoC, the game begins at the End game. There are however a few things that irritate me.

So far each stage or phase of evolution has been pretty easy. I've completed the tribal and Civilization parts in under an hour on Normal mode. I felt they were just a tad too easy. There are only to paths to win the stages: Economic or Military power. When I started the Civilization stage I was a little lost in how to manage the game.

I thought more importance revolved around the Spice plums but once I grabbed two or three I no longer needed to worry about getting more. I just built an economic city, built a ton of economic land vehicles and setup trade routes with the 2 AI players on my land mass. At one point I had so much Sporebucks I did not know what to do with them. Every so often I would hand over several thousands in Sporebucks as a gift until the AI allied with me or I purchased all their cities.

I never needed military vehicles but I built a few just for kicks. I was busy purchasing cities when I stumbled on the special ability to unify the planet for 100k. Clicked this bottom and boom I won the stage.

Now comes the Galactic stage. I hope there is some more depth here than the previous stages, but to be honest the real power of this game is when you take part in the whole experience: Designing every aspect of creature, vehicle and buildings combined with game play. That is where the beauty in this games lies and why I find this game entertaining.

I think EA and Will Wright have does a wonderful job with this game. The infrastructure behind Spore, Sporepedia and the other online aspects of this game are will keep this game fresh and entertaining.

Now if I could only take some time to finish painting my Wave Serpent for this coming Thursday night game