Space Age

Jesus, this is all going on a bit isn’t it, even by bit-tech standards. Thankfully we’re still a fair old way away from the mammoth sixteen-page standard of Smalley, Swinburne and Co. That said, we’ve still got the graphics analysis to go...

Perhaps mercifully though, the space stage is the final phase of the game and marks the height of evolution for your species. This makes sense, after all the purpose of life for any creature is to ensure that its genes continue to survive through its ancestors. By taking your species and spreading it across the cosmos you can rest assured that it can survive almost any possible scenario.

Well, except the march Galactus perhaps. Or the Gah-Lak-Tus.

The basic structure is the same as before (again), but (again) the key is that the scope has been magnified compared to the previous phases of the game – though I still think the civilisation era is the high-point, personally.


So, this time you are no longer exploring a small part of the ocean, or a forest, or a country, or a planet – you’re exploring the entire galaxy and you have a whole bunch of starships of your own design to do it with. You’re spreading your genetic seed – teraforming planets and creating your own ecosystems to experiment with and live on, as well as trading goods, technologies, bullets and stories with other races.

Once more it’s a case of building up your resources and then moving on into the unknown, though this time you’re harvesting more bizarre and amusing technologies and have the chance to abduct alien lives if you want. It’s also worth noting that the game is never inconsistent and though the game is strictly singleplayer, with content only seeded from other players and not controlled, it’s very possible to have your own people abducted in the earlier stages of the game.

Many times has a tribal battle turned after a warrior was tractor-beamed from the battlefield, looking like a terrified sheep in a glass elevator.

So, you take your ships and you explore and you find other creatures on other planets and you decide whether you want to blow them up with your ray gun or not and whether or not the engines cannae take the stain, cap’n – all good and fun, except...


Except this is the last stage in the game and that means that if you’re playing the game in order and with a single race then this is as far as you progress. It’s the boss stage and there’s nothing after it except the credits sequence. That means two things; first, it needs a big boss character and second, it needs an ending.

You can just play any single stage of the game forever if you want and if you particularly enjoy the creature phase then you don’t have to move past it at all until you want, but there is an ending for those who prefer it.

In the place of the big bad-guys, Spore has The Grox; a mysterious and evil alien race that fiercely defends its space from trespassers and exists primarily as a challenge for hardcore players. As soon as the space age starts you’ll start hearing all sorts of rumours about the Grox from friendly cultures and if you want then you can take up the quest to stop them one way or another.

Then, as an end-game goal, there is another quest altogether – the search for the meaning of life, the universe and everything according to Will Wright. Will you journey to centre of the galaxy to uncover the meaning of your existence? Eventually, of course you will – but we’ll leave that surprise for you to uncover...