Hero abilities can be combined for extra mayhem
I’ll quickly comment on the level design, graphics, and music. Everything looks great but it is not mind blowing or breathtaking. Each of the levels feels unique and this goes a long way when you are doing planet after planet. The music is perfect for a sci-fi setting and Darkspore is no eye-sore but it can run on a modest machine so it is a very accessible game in the hardware department.
You can play Darkspore solo which is fun in and of itself, but the game really shines when you get a group of friends (up to 3 others) to journey across space and rid the galaxy of the Darkspore threat. You will find that as you add people to your group both the enemies scale in difficulty and have increased health. The payoff to this is that there are more frequent and better loot drops, so it is a win-win situation and an incentive to play with more people. Even if you do not have a group of friends to play with, Maxis has included a great matchmaking system that will pair you with people of a similar level. Every time I was up late at night, trying to sneak a couple levels in before bed I could always find a group of randoms to play with and I had my delicious loot bonus.
I really enjoy the fact that you can finish a level in 15 minutes or continue on and play for hours. It is a very player friendly game and it makes for an amazing co-operative experience. If you can only make it through one level and then are summoned away from your desk for whatever reason, your party can continue on without you and you can join them in the next level.
Form your own galactic police squad with up to four people
Even though I really enjoy the story and theme of the game, it is not why I play Darkspore. The customization of the units, addictive gameplay, and the mutliplayer all come together to form one great cohesive experience. The game is streamlined in that there is a ton of loot to be acquired, you can spend as little or as long as you want tweaking stats and making your heroes look exactly how you want. The game looks and plays great and I cannot stress enough how much better it gets when you have co-op partners to play with. With the plethora of heroes and abilities to use, you will never grow tired of unlocking all the different facets of Darkspore. It is truly great game that should not be passed up for any reason other than not owning a computer.
Darkspore takes the best customization elements from its predecessor and mixes them in with an addictive game style and comes out with a recipe for success.
Verdict
Co-Op Score
Overall
The Co-Op Experience: Players can team up and customize their creatures in this loot collection action RPG.
Co-Optimus game reviews focus on the cooperative experience of a game, our final score graphic represents this experience along with an average score for the game overall. For an explanation of our scores please check our Review Score Explanation Guide.