The characters look pretty great in the editor, but like horrible-coloured custard in the game itself. But when played intensively, it can end up feeling like a chore. (Presuming you find decent buddies, anyway – partnering with a silent, selfish loot-fiend makes for pretty sour times.) In both solo or co-op, Darkspore is one of those games that could happily sit on your hard drive for months or years, forever able to offer an hour or two of pleasant, ambient time-killing and that vague buzz of satisfaction that comes from beating a boss and coming home with better loot. One to three other players in the mix means multiple heroes, tougher enemies and, most of all, more complicated and colourful ability combos. There's some aesthetic variety to the levels, and a slow trickle of huge bosses fitted with interestingly brutal powers of their own, but behind that it's the same experience recycled and not blessed with the sense of escalation and place that helps the Diablo games rise above their simple mechanics. But as the game wears on, it increasingly feels like a treadmill. The solo campaign is compulsive enough, built as it is upon the perennial allure of splatting monsters and collecting items with bigger numbers. Is the game artificially withholding key features like this (other 'upgrades', play modes and even player-versus-player are treated similarly) until several hours in, purely to create a veneer of evolution? As the game progresses, you unlock the option to have additional squads to hand, which mercifully frees things up, but it leaves a slightly bitter taste in the mouth. This system is clearly intended to promote strategy and diversity as well as risk-taking, but all too often it means sighing resignedly, returning to the Editor and laboriously upgrading your squad or assembling a new one.
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