Gotta kill them all...
The tagline for Darkspore is: "a new bread of action rpg." However, while the game can be fun, I did not find it ground breaking like Homeworld or Dune2 (Command and Conquer.) The game may be mission based and character changes are made in the editor, rather than in game, but having said that it felt like I was playing the original Dungeon Siege again. Personally I would have preferred more variation on missions, being able to complete things with stealth and brain rather than just brawn, as well as puzzles to solve. This is all a real shame because a lot of work has been put into creating lots of monster variation, yet it's really not exploited to the best. Over shoulder controls would allow the player to get into the game far more, as well as allowing them to see more of the action close up. It's also a shame that due to the way the game is written it is impossible to restart it from the beginning. Usually I would play a game to learn the controls then restart it in hard mode.For Darkspore's single player mode, I'd rate it 50%, and add another 5% on for the multiplayer mode, which suffers with some bugs. Overall, Darkspore is an enjoyable game that offers hours of mad clicking that eventutally forces you to play the game in a "hard man" mode to chain to get better powerups. This adds to the skill needed, enjoyment and frustration in equal measures. However, Darkspore probably isn't a game for hardcore RPG fans as the play is so linear and the heroes are not nearly as customisable as might be expected. Indeed, you really don't have to make many stategic decisions at all in Darkspore... except Kill Them ALL!
