Spore : Part 2.5: Tribal Phase (First Impressions)

So I've entered the Tribal Phase of Spore...

After one enters this phase you can no longer alter your creatures appearance. I was pleasantly surprised about that, since before I was able to alter my creature so often it didn't even appear to be the same species from one phase to the next. I was glad to see that now some choices had to be made, and whatever they were; they'd stick!

So: At the start of the Tribal Phase I got to alter my creature for one last time. I sat there looking at the four armed monkey with a bulls face and wondered what to spend with the nearly 600 extra "DNA" (money to buy bits and pieces with) on. After several generations the creature looked exactly like I had wanted it to look... Well, almost; I couldn't find a mouth I really loved, but I had every herbivore mouth and out of my choices I picked the one I felt was best. I had all this bloody money (I mean DNA) and nothing to spend it on. I felt jipped!

Just as I had suspected: When I was finished with my critter all that extra DNA disappeared and was gone.. wasted... I was jipped! I mean: No bonus points; No larger brain; No extra tools or anything (that I could tell) for having the extra DNA. I got nothing for it! Nothing!

OK, SO! Tribal Phase!:

New things:
1. You now control multiple creatures instead of just one. (Anyone watching a preview for Spore knew about this already.)
2. Your tribe now gets tools; Like torches, spears, and didgery-do.

Goals:
1. Gather food for your tribe so you can spend it on building new buildings (like spear huts and didgery-do huts)!
2. Defeat or Befriend other tribes.

At first this phase sounded like more of the same from the last phase: Gather food which is in such plentiful amounts that my tribe couldn't starve to death if it had a population the size of New York (and I'm only allowed a max of six tribe members to start); Kill or Befriend tribes.

However, I got very excited when an opposing tribe showed up and raided my tribe's food! I was like, "Neat! Some action!" Then another tribe came along and tried to destroy my torch-hut. 'Awesome! More action!' A third tribe showed up and attacked my main-hut! Ok, this phase of the game could be interesting!

Sadly, it wasn't. I went over to the first tribe that attacked me, gave it an offering, played my marraccas for them and made them my allies. Then I went and did the same thing for the other two tribes, only the third tribe required I play didgery-dos and wood-horns for them too!

After I had befriended the nearest tribes: I no longer had the threat of being attacked by them. In fact, the friendly tribes would often bring my tribe offerings of food! As if there wasn't already enough food that my tribe could all be as large as huts themselves and still never feel hungery!

Occasionally some little critter of lesser intelligence would sneak up and attempt to steal some of my food. However when I've got a stock pile of 600+ food and the critter can only eat 5 to 10 pieces before it felt full; Most of the time I didn't even bother to shew them away.

Conclusion: Tribal Phase is more of the same Simon Says crap of the "Solo Creature Phase".

Heck, at least in the "Solo Creature Phase" I could alter my creatures appearance. At the start of the Tribal Phase I threw some clothing on and I haven't felt the neet to alter it since. If it wasn't for the fact that I'd like to play this game all the way through to the 'end' in some hope that it'll become more fun; I'd stop playing right now.

Until next time, this fool will be fooling around!