I fondly remember the hype surrounding Spore before its release. It sounded like it was going to be the greatest sandbox god game ever. It wasn’t of course. That’s not to say it was a bad game or an unsuccessful game, it just never quite matched the build up. Unfortunately it’s the sort of game that has been remembered more for the pre-release hype than the actual content of the full game, a shame as it was a very intriguing proposition. The Spore franchise on the whole hasn’t fared much better either with the likes of Spore Creatures and Spore Hero Arena garnering mixed reviews and commercial success. So we come to the first Spore title for the Wii in the guise of Spore Hero, a basic but competent adventure game.
The simplest way of describing the nature of Spore Hero is to call it a very basic version of the action RPG. You start out as a round blob with legs to move around but that’s it. You’re quickly guided by the game through the main quirk to this title: the ability to add body parts for various scenarios. Such body parts range from the likes of legs and arms to enable you to attack enemies, fins to swim and horns to charge at your enemy. Oh and a mouth of course, that’s quite useful if you want to be able to eat anything after all! The more body parts that you want to use at any one time, the more blue crystals you must collect. These blue crystals are dotted around the game world quite frequently ensuring that it’s never too hard to equip extra parts. This is especially handy when you bear in mind that eventually there are 350 parts to collect all together when you include upgrades. As you can see already this is all very reminiscent of a very simplistic version of an RPG.
The storyline behind everything is extremely linear and most players probably won’t pay much attention to it instead sticking to working through the various missions available. These missions at times feel a little like a grind fest with many being extremely basic ‘fetch’ based missions or simply a matter of defeating a certain creature. Some are fortunately more creative though, such as one where you have to aid another creature in making it appear scarier. However for the most part you’ll be running around completing chores for various other wacky looking creatures. It is all extremely basic as you can imagine, but it is still fairly enjoyable. For the adult gamer there is nothing here to tax your grey matter but this isn’t really a game aimed at adults. Spore Hero is clearly aimed at the child gamer and there’s a lot of fun to be had here for that market. The game is never overly taxing and consistently provides other activities apart from roaming across the land to complete collection quests. Some activities are ridiculously simple for an adult such as jumping at the appropriate moment in a practically on rails platforming event, but it is good fun for a child getting to grips with the basics of gaming. There is also a rhythm/dance mini game where you must shake your Wii remote and nunchuk in time with the music. Again frivolous and slightly silly for an experienced gamer but excellent fun for the younger player.
As you’ve probably guessed Spore Hero is a game almost deserving of two entirely different scores. If you’re aged over 12 and a keen games player, Spore Hero is just a little too simple to really bother with. There is still fun to be had here but it is short lived and not really worth a full price purchase. However if there is an under 12 or novice gamer in the household, this is well worth a look as they are bound to find a lot of enjoyment here. It also teaches some crucial basic gaming skills and makes for a fantastic platform to propel the gamer to higher quality titles such as the likes of the Zelda series or the Banjo Kazooie titles. The fact that it pitches the difficulty level appropriately ensures that newcomers won’t be frustrated as to what to do next thanks to simple quests and a simple control system that always guides the player rather than confuses. It’s just a shame that yet another title in the Spore franchise hasn’t quite reached its potential.
VideogameUK verdict: 5/10
