Well, it seems EA and Maxis haven't quite finished milking Spore just yet. They've just announced DarkSpore. Think Diablo in the Spore Universe, where instead of new swords you get new arms and you'll have the basic understanding of the game. During the course of the game you'll also unlock additional members to add your squad, and this aspect is being compared to Pokemon. The game will ship with DRM that requires a constant internet connection to play, however it does feature some co-op online gameplay.Considering the entirely too simple and childish focus of SPORE and it's single Expansion Pack, it seems attempting to create an Action RPG set in that same world is counter-productive to the series. Action RPGs attempt to appeal to the reward addicts - and most of those gamers wouldn't have interested in SPORE in begin with, and would certainly not be interested in its art design and entirely too simplistic design. Calling the game DarkSpore and lowering the in-game Contrast doesn't really do much to fix this, and adding the usual excesses of blood and gore to a childrens game doesn't really seem like a good idea, meaning DarkSpore, at this stage, kind of looks like 'My First Action RPG'.I won't be buying it - it's from EA, it doesn't fix SPORE and it's DRM requires a constant internet connection - however it's at least something different. Who knows, Maxis might be able to un-screw the franchise.
I actually quite like it, but yeah, it would be better if they made full use of the editors from Spore so that you could create custom heroes and share them. I expect that'll come in the inevitable expansion. Until then, they'll most likely charge for new creatures and parts as ZehDon says. Shame really, since its pretty good and has a lot of potential.
I've been playing the beta and I sort of like it. The editing of heroes to put items on them is way too slow, in my opinion. The environments you play in are quite pretty from a fantasy standpoint. It's a hack-n-slash without a doubt, but sort of mission-based. They've thought of some fun things, like play a chain of missions with increased difficulty each step and gain additional items.
The main pursuit in the game is to - level yourself to unlock new things - find items for your heroes - balance your squads (each squad having 3 heroes) so they work together with the different mechanics of the game. There's a lot of room for customization, and not just of the graphics of your heroes.
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