Game Review
Here's what I have to say about the game after having played for about 50 minutes:
It's essentially fl0w with more attention to graphics and creature customization. For those not familiar, you start off as a small "Spore", a three-jointed blob floating around in a the primordial ooze. You eat things smaller than you and avoid larger things. This game employs a Zelda-style heart meter -- eating adds to your health, running into baddies takes away. If your health runs out, you have to restart the level.
The goal of each level is to gather DNA (which is also collected by eating, but the level does not go down unless you die). There is a DNA meter in the top left of the screen. After every few levels, you get to use the DNA to improve your Spore with a different appearance and with more practical upgrades like better protection, offensive structures, eyesight and mobility.
The controls actually work pretty well. Obviously, you control your Spore with the touch sensitivity of the click wheel. But you won't be spinning the wheel around wildly or aimlessly -- the game senses the absolute position of your finger on the wheel and your creature swims in that direction. It's functionality I didn't know even existed on the iPod. It's actually not necessary to rotate your finger around the wheel -- you can simply touch anywhere on the wheel, although it is usually easier just to rotate your finger. But the point is, you're not rotating your character, your telling it which direction to go -- it's absolute positioning rather than relative. It works the same way as an analog stick on a video game controller.
Unfortunately, the game does suck up a great deal of battery life as it's very graphics intensive. Accordingly, I was unable to finish the game on a full charge (on a 30 Gb 5th gen which may not get ideal battery life anyway), which leads to the next problem.
I haven't been able to save a game. The game started up and ran fine for me and only crashed when I selected "Save & Quit," the first time after having finished 15 levels. The screen just goes to black, and I have to menu-center-button reset it to get it to come back on. When I start the game again, nothing has been saved.
All-in-all, the game is fun, but it doesn't seem to have too much replayability. Of course, I haven't fully explored the whole game (there are other modes, including a primordial pool music visualizer over which you can play your own music from elsewhere in you iPod), so I'm not sure what else there is. Like I said, I only finished the first 15 levels and it took about 50 minutes. The iTunes Store page says there are 18 levels, so you can see it wouldn't take a whole lot of time to finish, but probably enough to be at least a satisfying journey for $5.
Mostly, I would recommend getting the game only if you don't have an iPhone or iPod touch and need something to tide you over for the upcoming release of the full game. It's fun, but I'd more highly recommend the version of Monopoly that's at the store as you're likely to play it more often.
Anyway, just my two cents. Good luck!
