I like it. Though I can see where the 'it's more of a toy than a game' thing comes in. It's fun and all but not as high of quality as other games.
But it's Maxis, even if they did get bought out by EA. I <3 Maxis/Will Wright. Been playing their games forever and don't mind shelling out the money for Spore. At least it's a fairly original concept, even if it could've been done better.
Here's my little guys.
I like the evolution time line thing it does. It's interesting to see my creature go from a single celled nothing to that thing. I tried to design him logically to what evolution would really do to him given the circumstances. Like, his enlarged mid-section is because he used to have poison sacs there. His tail is from walking on-land and needing to balance. The wings came from cilia that clumped together due to not being supported by water any more. His second set of arms used to be a second set of feet but when he evolved into the tribe stage he stood up straighter and the legs became arms to hold more stuff (even though it doesn't really make a difference in game). And then finally the top hat came about simply by him being a bad ass.
And all the stages have different names too. That one is Shivalios nativa. The first one was Shivalios rudimentos which evolved into Shivalios rudimentos ss toxica and then when it hit land it became Shivalios toxica, then Shivalios terra, then Shivalios elegante and, finally, Shivalios nativa. Yes, I'm a nerd and yes, the different forms would never be in the same genus. Don't care.
I'm up to the Civilization age but just started it. Haven't done much except look around. Designing my city hall took a ridiculous amount of time lol. Would've taken longer but it told me 'no, bad' and stopped letting me put more crap on. Then after that I had to design a land vehicle, which took about half a day too.
