DarkSpore PC Review

I came across this game while looking for a co-op RPG for me and a friend to play that wasn't a fantasy or middle ages type genre. We were mainly looking for scifi so this kind of filled the slot.
How did it fare? Well I will get to that.

Over all it was enjoyable to play though it was the demo version. I think it could be quite a bit more fun with a buddy hacking away with me but not much different over all. It felt like most other dungeon crawler Hack-N-Slash RPG games I have played in the past. Nothing besides the fact that my character was a monster and the environment reminded me that it was a scifi setting. The only thing that stood out a little bit to me was that it wasn't just one hero I brought into combat, it was a team of 3 that were hot swap-able at any time during play with a cool down of a couple seconds. Besides that it was the typical fare of special powers that were usable from an action bar after being gained from leveling up. Kill your way through the map to the end point, picking up DNA(experience) and loot along the way from dead enemies, chests and the randomly placed and seemingly useless destructible structures. Enemy types were quite varied, though besides the actual models, nothing drastically set them apart from run of the mill monsters.

So besides being quite meh in most other areas, the game controlled fantastically well! The smooth flow of combat and control tightness was really the only thing that kept me playing as long as I did in the demo. Though I will probably return to see which monsters I unlock next, I got enough of a feel for the game to write about it. Obviously the love of loot collecting was there but it wasn't a super special affair.

The story is really non-existent. You are a super scientist woken from millenia of cryo sleep to find that your genetic experiment that wiped out most of the universe has finally evolved into usefulness. These useful creations (your heroes) must be tracked down and unlocked in order to purge the galaxy of the mutated menace side effects of your experiments. That's about it, in the load screens the game tacks on some back story and history to each location but seeing as there aren't any NPCs that you converse with, it is mostly forgettable.

The main cool feature of the game is the crazy amount of customization you can do with the loot you pick up and equip on your characters. Each piece as usual goes on a specific slot, but the look and feel of that item on your monster and be custom sized, colored, and placed. I can see endless amounts of fun and combinations involved with this as long as the equipment is varied.

All in all it is a fun game and fairly entertaining, it would be more so with friends. Having found this on steam for $15 I've decided that I am going to wait for the price of the game to drop. Can't honestly say that I would be willing to spend more than $10 on this game.

7.5/10