GENRE
	Simulation
	DEVELOPER
	Maxis
	PUBLISHER
	Electronic Arts
	NUMBER OF PLAYERS
	1-2
	WI-FI ENHANCED
	No
	DS COMPATIBLE
	No
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Nintendojo was provided a copy of this game for review by a third party, though that does not affect our recommendation. For every review, Nintendojo uses a standard scoring criteria.

It was inevitable. Just like every other Sim or "create this" game, Spore has finally branched out onto home consoles. After an iPhone app and Spore Creatures, Wii has received its own version and, for the most part, it isn't half bad.

First and foremost, this game is not made for quite as broad an audience as the original Spore game. Instead, Spore Hero has more of a "young gamer" feel to it, but still has much going for it.

Spore Hero starts off with an egg-hatched monster that has a basic body, eyes, legs and feet. These parts can be upgraded and modified through blue meteor pieces collected in the game, and which act as the basis for evolution in Spore Hero. The more blue meteors you smash and collect pieces from, the more you can evolve your creature's parts and even increase its number of parts. Want six sets of legs? You can do it. What about two mouths, three sets of arms, wings and the ability to swim? That's possible as well. You can even change the color, texture and pattern of your creature.

Further, Spore Hero has plenty to do and shouldn't be compared too much to DS's Spore Hero Arena; though there is battling in the main adventure and a battle-only mode, these are the only major similarities to the DS title. For instance, in addition to evolution-granting blue meteors, there are red meteors that corrupt other creatures who come too close. So, one of this game's many tasks is to destroy red meteors. There is a catch though: sometimes red meteors are linked together and need to be broken quickly to prevent regrowth.

There's also a twist with your creature's health, which is regained via eating fruit. However, without a mouth, fruit cannot be eaten. Thankfully, the ability to add a mouth is granted shortly after your creature takes its first steps, which may seem too forgiving, but that mouth can also be trouble. One of the first battles in Spore Hero requires the take-down of a Bobbit, a nasty creature that throws fruit projectiles. At first, it's hard not to eat the fruit, especially after the Bobbit states just how good and special it is, but eating the Bobbit's fruit causes your creature to fall asleep, wake up in his nest and have to start the task all over again. Such a detail is a nice touch that illustrates how so many of the game's aspects has both a pro and con.

Yet aside from the basics of evolving and battling, additional creature parts actually have to be tracked down first. Many body parts can be found in bone mounds scattered throughout the land, or they can be obtained by completing tasks which are, sad to say, very repetitive. Many of these tasks come in bunches with what seems to be the same task over and over with a small twist tossed in between. Granted, there are some major tasks that differ from the run-of-the-mill types and can compare to bosses in other games, but deeper and deeper into the game's main quest, these unique tasks become farther apart. Battles also seem one dimensional and, coincidentally, are the most frequently requested tasks to be completed.

Continuing on, a gamer's creature also has an inventory within which to store objects for later use or gifting to other needy creatures. Saving is done at nests, which also happen to be where upgrading parts, changing looks and evolving takes place.

As for Spore Hero's audio and visual presentation, a couple words sum them up: not and bad. Visuals definitely don't match-up with the original PC Spore, but they do what they are meant to do and still fit in with the same style as the original. The visuals are actually pretty good at handling creatures with a huge amount of parts. However, the graphic engine will lose some of its spunk when many creatures and objects are onscreen. This seems to be something the developer wanted to do in order to keep the framerate up around 30fps because the few times the framerate does slump below that mark, fighting can be a little frustrating. That's because fighting is mostly timing-based and any small dive in framerate can really make you want to shut off the game. Remember the younger audience? Yeah, this could probably affect them even more.

The controls are a little more basic, but not hard at all to learn. There are a total of four arenas of control: exploration, combat, advanced combat and evolution. Exploration controls are as follows: move with the Nunchuk's thumbstick, kick by shaking the Wii Remote, select items and objects with the cursor and A button, jump with the A button, interact with the B button then control pad, camera and view changes with the C button and control pad and the map can be brought up by pressing the + button (also displays progress). Basic combat controls are very easy. The Z button blocks while the B button bites, as long as the creature has a mouth. Kick in combat is still done by shaking the Wii Remote, while jumping is still done by pressing A and this same button dodges if pressed while moving. The advanced combat controls are mainly based on what the created creature has for parts and abilities and a few like flying, diving and double jumping can be carried over into exploration. All advanced combat controls never go so far as to become confusing. They all either have the player shake the Wii Remote while holding or pressing a certain button, or shake the Nunchuk doing the same thing. Oh, and if the player is fortunate enough to create a creature with regenerative properties, that's done by holding the C button.

Finally, the evolution controls are the most simplistic and work very well. Dragging and dropping is the name of the game here in the evolving process. Dragging and dropping parts to and from the creature works all too well while clicking certain sections of the bottom ribbon will bring up different types of body parts. The developer did not go overboard with motion controls nor did they get wasteful with using only two buttons. The controls allow for a small learning curve which fits in just right with the game.

As for other modes within Spore Hero, there is a Sporepedia that allows for the creation and storage of any creature the player would like to create just for fun. Using parts found in the adventure mode, players create a creature the same way that evolving one in adventure mode works. Concept art is also available in the "extra" section. The only thing really missing is the ability to play online. Battle mode would have been better if playable with friends online. Playing the computer or anyone you can find in your house just gets boring and simple. Sporepedia entries would have been pretty neat to trade online as well. It's only a small gripe and nothing huge would have come from it, but thinking about it from the other side: it wouldn't have hurt and probably could have added a few points to the score.

Overall, Spore Hero's not horrible or even bad for that matter, but it sure isn't great. Instead, it's a good game that could have been a very good game with a few simple things, like a small amount of online play and even broader range of tasks. Obviously, Spore Hero is intended for a younger audience, but did the main adventure's tasks have to be so bland? Fortunately, EA and Maxis haven't targeted this game at an older audience. Spore Hero should be bought by those who cannot get enough of Spore for PC and want to try a little bit of a story-driven experience on their TV sets. Those (mainly young ones) who want to try out a small twist on an old formula: rent it.

6.4/10