Spores

Yes the genius from the game the Sims finally decided to take a crack at the whole scope of life and I must say he didn’t do a terrible job. Customization is great in this game; truthfully even if someone used the exact same colors, patterns and items as you, your spores will not look the same. The customization was so great they made a Ds game based on just creating characters. So this might have you wondering if they didn’t screw up in customization where did they screw up in.
Well it’s not a completely straightforward answer. The game play wasn’t terrible in the first few stages. But the amount of time spent in those first few stages is little to none. It took almost 4 days (yes I know a bit slow) to actually reach the almighty space stage. In that time period I loved my spores. They grew on to me as I saw them grow into a mighty empire. Best thing that happened in that time period was the freedom. I could do whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted. This power made me feel great because I was entertaining my self with the menu of things to do.
But once you hit space the game does the worst thing possible to you. It cuts you off from your empire. Sure you can go visit if you wanted, but there is really no point when all you need to do is go into their star system and call them. That is the first major offender. The second is the loss of freedom. Throughout the whole game not once did they tell me I had to do something, they strongly suggested it. However, in space the whole beginning part is a series of missions giving you a tutorial on how space works. This might be fine if those three missions didn’t become the three outlying themes of the space stage. The three missions end up boiling down to: how to make money, how to kill other civilizations and how to create colonies. So of the three I decided to do the one that sounded the most interesting. I soon found out that creating colonies is useless. In fact you will soon find out almost every game progressing function becomes inferior in the face of your military might. To win in Space stage all you have to do is kill crap, which in turn gives you money for more parts, which will allow you to kill more crap with. There is no real reason to do anything else. Yes, I know you can play the spice trade or look up artifacts. But why waste tons of your time going from planet to planet and then waiting for things to become opportune when you can just go ahead and make your opportune moment with a simple missile button. There is no fun in doing the other things, everything is tedious and the little failures in the space stage in conjunction with the giant failures make it become pointless and boring.
There is no feeling of accomplishment because all you really did was spam with your missile button. If you didn’t then I wonder how you managed to find the same three tasks interesting. And yes you can make the argument that the other stages of the game did not suck, but you spend so little time on them what is the point of even having them count. If you want to create things from the ground up my suggestion is a civilization game. The only thing the game Spores gives you is disappointment. You’re disappointed because you wanted to see your giant empire become a mega republic, but it was so boring to get there you gave up.

Rockband

Just yesterday I had my first experience with the game Rock Band. For those of you who don’t know Rock Band is a rock and roll band sim where you get to be your favorite part of a rock and roll band. When I say rock and roll band part, I mean the typical guitarist, drummer and singer. Now before I insult every Rock Band lover in the room let me say that as a party game this game works well. Its simple and when you have a simple game several people can play at once it is bound to be a hit. I thought I was going to pee on myself when I heard my friend try to sing “Enter the Sandman”. The playing system is pretty simple as well you basically click color coded buttons in correlation with the screen. The singing is just karaoke.
However, after a few rounds of the game some obvious issues jumped out at me. First off the game culture can be a real turn off at times. More experience players will usually encourage new players to start at a harder difficulty level, which in turn causes them to immediately fail. This instant failure will have you wanting to go back to the sheltering easy levels, but any suggestion of such change will cause the experienced player to begin laughing at you (luckily I sang).
But, if you’re with your friends they probably laugh at you anyways so this isn’t that much of a complaint. The karaoke on the other hand was a giant turn off. Sing karaoke to several rock oldies or some cool rock song you’ve never heard of. Sounds great until you find out that the game has only several oldies and the rest are no name songs nobody really wants to sing. Of all the songs “Fall out Boys” have why did you pick the most obscure one? Karaoke only works when you’re singing a song you are familiar with and truthfully only 5 songs there were familiar to me. Guns and Roses, Led Zeppelin, Queen. Those are the names I expected to see in Rock Band. Sure there are some great bands in Rock Band, but not enough to convince me to embarrass myself in front of my friends over and over again.
In the end Rock Band is fun and for those of you who need a party game and don’t own a Nintendo Wii , I recommend this game. As for those of you who want to live out rock glory or even want to explore rock musically; buy a guitar or Wii music.

The Retrospect

Hello everyone and welcome to my blog. I created this blog so that I might talk about the gaming world in terms gamers and non-gamers can understand. Most of what I write is going to be strictly opinion based so feel free to voice your opinion in a respectful way. I will appreciate anyone who clarifies any errors or misinformation I have. As for the name the reason I am calling my blog the retrospect is because I will be focusing on past games. However, don't worry I will have a cascade of new release info and a review of any game I feel like reviewing. There may be more joining the Retrospect crew sooo I hope soon there will be a variety of writing on this blog. However, for now I will be working on my own. Thanks to anyone reading this.