Spore on iPhone

Since the latest Mac event, where Jobs talked big about iPhone being the next-gen portable gaming platform, I decided it was time to give it a try. I had only been testing the semi-pro apps and hobbyists games, I wanted to give a shoot at those blockbuster high-budget/high-expectations games. I chose Spore as it certainly reached a climax in the last couple weeks at my RSS buzz-o-meter.
Spore is edited by EA, and I had high expectations on the quality of the game itself. Well, I’ve been most disappointed for quite a lot of reasons, although the game itself is “cute”, you drive your little monster through changing mazes to eat other monster’s DNA and evolve, the realization is really poor:

• The accelerometer is not precise enough to play – especially on a vibrating environment such as the underground. Every change of seating position will require a re-calibration of the “zero” position – really painful…
• The intro movie scene is just being played by the quicktime movie player – pressing the screen during the intro shows the control – that’s so cheap and lame !
• While playing if you ever hit the home key (c’mon guys it’s under the thumb – of course you’re going to hit it), the game exits and your progression is lost … same when you get a phone call… that’s really a pain
• The gamme is really totally linear, and although I’ve reached level 19 it feels like I’m still wandering in the same environments… and I really have no clue why I’m moving my monster : there is not scenario there

As a conclusion I’d say that it’s amateur work – the game looks like a student project and it’s totally not worth the 9€ 8.99€ EA asks for it – should they have not invested so much in marketing over the “SPORE” brand, that game would have had no more than a 1/5 star rating… I was really expecting more for iPhone high-end games hope we get to see some better stuff soon.