Firstly, this game has been extremely hyped, probably more than any recent PC exclusive I can think of. And rightly so, considering Will Wright of the Sim titles is behind it. For those unfamiliar with the basic concept, you create a creature starting off as a cell and building it as you evolve into a creature, then a sentient creature, followed by a ambitious creature and finally an intelligent space-faring race. Quite a lot in just one game, it has to be said.
For those unfamiliar with the games' concepts and stages, I'll outline them. I'll put it in spoiler space, so if you know what you're in for you can skip past it to the review itself.
Okay, onto the actual review.
The game is, quite simply, a massive achievement in innovation on one level, but doesn't quite live up to everything it was touted to be on another. The good parts are absolutely fantastic, and it really doesn't have any bad parts per se, but it does tend to be somewhat of a Jack of All Trades and Master of... well, a few actually, but not all.
The cell stage is fun as hell, but it's over so damn quickly, and since you can start any section at any point once you've done everything once, you probably won't visit it much more after that. The following stage is neat, but can tend to get a little old if you're hunting for a specific part and can't find it, and can feel a little engineered rather than like a proper world (more on that later). The next two stages are the weakest. They're kind of fun, and designing the buildings and vehicles is probably even better than designing your creatures, but at the same time they don't stand on their own. They're so simplified compared to a real RTS game, and after so many over the years, are kind of lacking. Again though, desigining your own stuff is fun, and you can even design your own national anthems.
The space stage is the ultimate section, it's the most (non-designing) fun and it's where you'll spend most of your game, as I said. In some ways though, that's kind of the game's main problem.
The fact is, the last section can be quite brutal, repetitive and annoying too. You could find yourself fine with plenty of allies and few problems. Or you could find nothing but warlike enemies around you, demanding large payments or they'll wage war, while you constantly spend your time saving your planet from ecological disaters and pirate attacks. The fact is, it can be hard to make any real progress when you're getting attacked by two enemies on two worlds every 10-20 seconds, while your few allies call for help and another planet needs some environmentally hazardous creatures taken out within 2 minutes. In my two playthroughs so far, I've had a really nasty time of things, and a really easy time of things in these stages. While I think much of it has to do with how you decide to play your creature (for example, my warlike race had the hard time surrounded by tough enemies, while my peaceful creature had mostly friends) I think the randomly generated content can tend to mean things can sometimes just be unfair and unbalanced just because it is random. And while there is clearly some balancing going on to create stable, realistic eco-systems, that's not always going to be the case.
There's also some balancing issues, as you'll ask questions such as "why must I help my allies when they never come to my aid when my planet is under attack?" and "why am I the only race in the universe capable of only making ONE spaceship, let alone being able to fill it with fighters?" Some of these things balance out somewhat, such as if you ask an ally to try and take over an enemy planet, which means they can assault it with far more firepower than you could ever muster (save for the planet-destroying laser, that is.)
I guess what I'm saying it, whether it's worth the big journey all depends on the end.
The real fun is in the creators. I have to say, I actually think the vehicle, boat and plane designing is even more fun than the creature creator is, and you can make some really varied stuff. Even cooler is randomly seeing your own creations here and there in the world. I myself made Max from Sam & Max in the creature creator, then saw him as a roving group of nasty predators in the Creature Stage. I also made a Xenomorph that was spotted as a nasty Epic creature (basically, the game's Godzilla/King Kong additions) in the Tribal Stage.
Unfortunately, some things were left out that were initially touted as being in the game. There was a seperate underwater stage between Cell and Creature for instance, where you had to earn your way into getting legs. It was basically supposedly like the Cell Stage in 3D from what I'd seen in videos and while not really neccessary in the long run would have been neat. The early creature stage was also supposed to be more free-roaming and not have all the creatures in nests from the get-go. While I see how the nesting system works, the game feels a little less random and alive than it seemed to be in the early demo, since most of the creatures have marked nests where they gather together, rather than being more realistically spread about. There's still the odd roving bands and single wanderers without nests, as well as the scary Epic monsters, but overall the Creature Stage feels a little too much "Stage" and not enough "Creature", if you get my drift?
Still, those are fairly minor quibbles, and one has to admire and let their jaw drop a little at what's been achieved here. While some of the individual sections have their problems here and thre, overall the game is a success. Will Wright set out to make a game that's about evolving from cell to space-faring race, and that's more about the sum of it's parts than the individual pieces. And thankfully the game is. Despite some weaknesses in the stages, the game links them together well and never ceases to remind you in each section of where you were before. There are links such as how and what you did in the previous sections giving you certain abilities later, and you'll see your creature and various designs all the time at the end. You'll see familiar creatures, and even pre-evolved versions of yourself on various planets, in various stages of evolution, and get to mess with them, by dropping monoliths, exterminating them, tipping the scales in their favour or using them as colonisation fodder.
When you finally get to leave your world, you'll come back every so often and zoom right down to the ground and remember back when you were just like that silly little creature the size of a pinhead, and you'll marvel at the fact you grew up on that world that seemed so huge at the start, but is now just a little sphere.
Overall, it's a fun and quirky little game, with lots of variety and an insane scope. It's graphically cute, with some neat effects that stop it looked dated. It's funny and challenging, it lets you mould not only your creature, but the crafts and buildings they'll use, and it offers some very varied gameplay. I get the feeling though that it won't quite have the lastibility I initially thought it would. I get the feeling the creation tools will get the most attention, because I can see people boring of the game itself after a little while. That said, I'd say it is the type of game you can easily put down for a few months and then come back to, and there are at least several ways to play the game, even if they all pretty much result in the same way. I'm hoping expansion packs will be released to give it a bit more flavour and add some new features. As it stands, it's a real blast to play. It may not quite live up to its hype, but I'd challenge anybody to not be enthralled by it some way, shape or form.
Graphics: 8/10 - Cute and colourful, and while not eye-popping, more than serves the purpose for what it is.
Sound: 9/10 - Cool music and neat sound effects. Little noises they make might become irritating after a while though.
Playability 8/10 - Very playable in all sections, though the battles in the later sections could do with some work.
Lastability 8/10 - Vast, with many modes and options. The builder will probably eat more of your time than the game.
Grade: 8.5/10