Spore Origins for iPod: my review

As soon as I knew that a version of Spore was released for 5G iPods, I "ran to the nearest" iTunes store and purchased the game (here). This is what I've been playing for the last 2 days (that is, whenever I have my iPod around and have some free time to kill).


Spore Origins is more of a teaser than an actual game, but it is still great fun. It allows you to play the first stage of the newly-released game Spore, a simulation-based game (kind of like The Sims) that allows you to control a living being from its micro-cellular stage up to a level where space exploration takes place.

For now, I won't be playing Spore as it was only released for Mac OS X Leopard and since I only have Tiger installed, this will have to wait until I upgrade. By the way, if you're one of the lucky guys that is already playing Spore, check out the cheat codes for the game.

But we're here to talk about Spore Origins and I have to say that I didn't have this much fun with my iPod ever since I purchased iQuiz. You start the game as a small organism which has to survive by eating smaller organisms and staying away from larger ones. But as you keep going and collect DNA points, you're able to "evolve" your organism and add some features to it, such as enhancing its movement, defence or attack capabilities.

This is where the game gets really interesting, because the level of flexibility allows gamers to create the strangest organisms that you can imagine. Check out a demo video:


But these changes in your living being should not be made lightly as they will determine its success throughout the following levels. For example, I had to restart the game because I didn't "invest" in defence capabilities and got "stuck" in a level where these were crucial for my organism's survivability.

I know what you're thinking: being an iPod game, it can't be that interesting because the controls are very limited. Well, it doesn't feel that way, I assure you. The click-wheel, as with everything with the iPod, is very intuitive and it feels like a normal joystick in a typical 2D game.

Even though this game is just a way of opening up your appetite for the real deal, you can still have some real fun while in the train/bus on your way to work.

Fully recommended!