Creature mode and Space mode are fun, but Organism, Tribal, and Civ are incredibly simplistic and repetitive and are very boring even the first time you play them. I hate to say it, but it's a bit disappointing.

9/7/2008 4:12:21 PM

I think thats mostly everyones feeling. I would love playing just those two modes. I like going through creature and making my guy look like hes actually progressing and evolving as I get more items. But I don't like tribal or civ. But from what I can tell its pretty necessary to go the whole way for the bonuses.

9/7/2008 5:40:06 PM

bought my copy today and it crashes on autoplay

even if I try to install it manually the installer crashes, so it seems I have to wait for EA support to sort this out before I can install/play it

9/7/2008 6:28:19 PM

space mode is pretty hectic...there's a ton to keep track of

9/7/2008 7:17:12 PM

Congrats, n00bs, on buying into the DRM-abyss.

9/7/2008 10:51:42 PM

im gussing this wont run on my 1.4 ghz cpu

:-(

9/8/2008 8:51:54 AM

^ on the low setting, runs perfect on my 1.7

9/8/2008 9:37:40 AM

http://fredbenenson.com/blog/2008/09/07/spore-drm-and-disorganized-activism/

Quote :

"Spore, the long awaited evolved version of Sim City by game genius Will Wright has a DRM problem. As of this post, there are 14 “1 Star” reviews versus six 4 and 5 star reviews, by people who said that they won’t buy it (which admittedly isn’t quite the same as a review of the game itself) because it has DRM: "

yikes

9/8/2008 2:03:41 PM

so let me get this straight

people are bashing this game bc in the 2 days since release theyve tried to install it on 4 computers, the first 3 being easy and the 4th requiring a phone call

microsoft does the same thing on streets and trips and ive used it 6 or 7 times by just saying "had to reformat"

of course the game is going to stop working in the future because just like every publisher it becomes inconvenient to fund server space after a few years

9/8/2008 2:32:00 PM

Why is that an "of course" kind of thing?

It's stupid DRM protection. Think of the most popular and successful games of the early 90s. None of them had this shit and I can still play them now.

And the other part of it is correct. It's fairly repetitive. Still interesting, though.

9/8/2008 3:43:34 PM

Yeah pretty sure my Civ3 is going to continue to work as long as I don't physically break it in any way.

9/8/2008 3:55:51 PM

Hey, at least its better than this half-life 2 game I can't play, because steam says its already been installed once before.

At least EA gives 3-4 installations. Reformatting is what a yearly thing (at least for me)? In four years this game will be have dropped in price dramatically.

9/8/2008 3:58:35 PM

Terraforming is a bitch

9/8/2008 4:09:50 PM

^^ That probably has something to do with your steam account. I've reformatted my computer a half-dozen times since I bought HL2 off Steam, and I can still redownload it just by logging in to Steam.

9/8/2008 4:25:23 PM

Quote :

"Why is that an "of course" kind of thing? It's stupid DRM protection. Think of the most popular and successful games of the early 90s. None of them had this shit and I can still play them now. And the other part of it is correct. It's fairly repetitive. Still interesting, though."

its an "of course" kind of thing because UNLIKE 99% of games before it most of the content is not stored on your hard drive, its on a server and distributed among everyone. once those servers go down, you wont be able to access anything other than what was on the disc to begin with which WILL still work but defeats the purpose of the game in that the computer doesnt have to populate your worlds, other players do. what do the most succesful games of the early 90s have to do with this? you have 3-4 times to change computers. That's so generous compared to other programs like Adobe where one key gets one installation.

this is a legitimate form of DRM. music/movies have yet to implement something that works and probably should just stop trying but games cant be played on anything but computers so theres no platform arguments like "why cant i burn my music more than once to disc" or "it only works on zunes and not ipods, etc..."

9/8/2008 4:32:40 PM

let's be honest

all software should be free

problem solved

9/8/2008 4:33:41 PM

lets be honest

all software is already free

if you want it to be.


But seriously, the more I play this game, the less I like it.

[Edited on September 8, 2008 at 4:47 PM. Reason : ]

9/8/2008 4:47:25 PM

from what i'm hearing...i'm glad i've saved my $50 dollar bucks

9/8/2008 5:00:19 PM

eh, I've had fun with it

It's not as groundbreaking as it was made out to be--it's really just a collection of five games, all of which have been done individually before. But it entertains me, so I don't regret the purchase.

9/8/2008 6:09:43 PM

I'm having a real problem making money in the space stage

I'm maxed out at trade routes (only like 4 though, how can you add more?), sell spices at a profit whenever I can, and am constantly trying to expand my empire because I know all of the other races are doing it, but I don't know if i've ever been above 200k since the prices for items are so ridiculously high.

Other than doing pointless "kill this" missions, what am i missing? Those are usually only 30k a pop anyway.

9/9/2008 9:25:56 PM

today is my first day in the tribal stage.

i took a couple of days to master the creature stage and max out my creature.

9/9/2008 9:31:05 PM

^ I wish I had done that, I'm not doing nearly as well in tribal, but I'm also not good at micromanaging

9/9/2008 9:47:18 PM

DRM? thx RELOADED

9/9/2008 11:25:07 PM

have fun playing with nothing but the boring built-in creatures

9/9/2008 11:56:06 PM

http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/genmessage.php?board=926714&topic=45325665

how to reduce the frequency of pirate attacks in the space stage

9/10/2008 7:46:37 AM

Made it to Space today. Seems like this part is much better than the previous two...although it was fun watching my planes take down cities.

Tribal stage just blew, though.

9/11/2008 2:11:34 PM

^4 Micromanaging? I didn't know there was any in tribal. Space has micromanaging, but its not really as much micromanaging as having to fly back and save your planets every 5 minutes. More and more I'm starting to dislike this game.

9/11/2008 2:48:40 PM

^the constant ordering to hunt and bring back food got old very quickly

because instead of just being able to set a standing order for people to go hunt, you have to give them a new order for every creature

9/11/2008 7:18:35 PM

you're doing it wrong - just tell them to gather fruit and they do it automatically. probably fishing too, but I wouldn't know, the rods were the last thing I unlocked.

just have 1-2 guys gathering and the rest of your tribe rolling with the chief either negotiating or pillaging

9/11/2008 11:22:50 PM

My people were carnivores, not herb/omnivores

fishing might've worked, but my village wasn't particularly close to water

[Edited on September 12, 2008 at 6:00 AM. Reason : ]

9/12/2008 6:00:17 AM

Just domesticate 3 animals and have one guy getting eggs constantly. That frees up everyone else. And either way you don't need that much food, as long as you don't waste time all it takes is a couple dead animals and you will have a ton of food.

9/12/2008 7:02:18 AM

Quote :

"http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/genmessage.php?board=926714&topic=45325665 how to reduce the frequency of pirate attacks in the space stage"

or make sure you win civilization with a military standing.

i just took my first trip to the center of the galaxy last night... it was pretty cool until in my retreat i i used a wormhole, then thought "oh this is a lot closer now" only i forgot that i was in a different spiral arm, so i kept trying every wormhole i could find 'til i ended up in the exact opposite side of the galaxy at the far tip of an arm. kinda felt like Farscape.

9/14/2008 3:20:21 PM

^Ha my thoughts exactly and without any alien women to pick up on the way.

9/14/2008 6:49:52 PM

^^ Yeah, I did that, and I still was constantly having to rush back to other planets to stop attacks, it just got old after a while

9/15/2008 8:39:33 AM

Quote :

"let's be honest all software should be free problem solved"

But then all software would suck

9/15/2008 9:39:51 AM

So whats the verdict here?

9/17/2008 6:51:28 PM

A big let down. Creature creator is the best part, and you can get that separate... I was hoping for some sort of evolution-like processes or deeper game play, or something anything to make it worthwhile to play.

9/17/2008 7:04:34 PM

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/218-Spore

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

9/17/2008 8:19:43 PM

My humble review

The game lacks depth in many of its critical parts.

Even the creature creator, sure its cool, but eh

Evolution should be built in a tree fasion, ie you cant evolve a really freaking long tail all the sudden.

I think you should have to choose like a hand type (like claw talon, grasper) or something then you can modify yoru initial one. I shoudnt be able to go from a claw one minute, and then throw on a giant buzzsaw the next.

The vehicles so much could have been done with that. I added all these cool lasers and shit, and what does it do, does it fire out of the thing, nope it shoots a stream of jizz at the enemy.

Glactic scale is fun, but it can be tedious. I strugn myself out early, which caused me greif tryign to fly from planet to planet, especially before the later drives become avaiable. I tried to go towards the center but the goxx obliterated my behind. I find myself constantly abandoing the old colonies behind me and spreading forward, but it annoys me (and i know i can delete them) to see xx planet is failing. plus they are building up spice

There needs to be some sorta automatic governer, or a way to assign your allies to handle this crap. Too much micromanaging.

[Edited on September 19, 2008 at 1:07 PM. Reason : dd]

9/19/2008 1:05:24 PM

^I agree

I am disappointed with how loosely the game handles evolution. You can switch parts out from opposite ends of the spectrum in one shot with no penalties. The environment never varies (no ice or desert areas) and there is no selection pressure other than the whim of the player.

The biggest gap in the flow of the game to me is the transition from cell to creature. You simply stick a pair of legs on your cell dude (which still retains microscopic parts like cilia and flagella) and you walk out of the sea. I hope that the first expansion set adds an aquatic stage with fins and bioluminescence and all that cool shit.

And even though they are boasting that there are 25 million creations uploaded so far, 99.999% of them are generic crap. I've only come across one creature I thought was neat and that was because I couldn't figure out what the hell I was looking at.

I like the cell and space stages though. I haven't played too far into the space stage to lose interest. I may even try for the center of the galaxy and to find Earth. Once I'm done I might pick up Gal Civ or Sins of a Solar Empire. I never thought I'd enjoy a space conquest game.

Overall the cell & space stages and creators were worth the $50 and my 3 year old loves making monsters and cars. It sucks that he can't play with the vehicles as he makes them like he can with the creatures. Of course their only animation is to lob jizz rockets and blowup.

9/25/2008 3:51:57 PM

I've enjoyed it a lot actually. So far I'm in the space stage with an herbivore.

Meet Adoraluffalus:

9/25/2008 7:19:40 PM

its worth the $50

not worth the 2-3 year wait and hype

9/25/2008 7:34:58 PM

^^ cute babe

9/25/2008 9:40:09 PM

This is pretty neat: http://kotaku.com/5055113/holy-crap-spore-created-starcraft-amazes-us

9/26/2008 9:39:06 AM

It's a tedious, repetitive, boring game masked as a creature/vehicle creator.

I played it til the space part and then bleh...its basically the same shit over and over. Totally not worth the hype or the $50. Who cares if I can upload and download community shit. It's mostly even worse than what comes with the game.

Sorry, I like a little more substance to the game. Where is the sandbox feel? Rarely have I been railroaded as much in a game....

9/26/2008 2:26:30 PM

I got the to space thing too and I either die within 10 seconds of flying near a hostile planet or have to run the same type of missions searching endlessly for a star system with no real guidance... sucks

9/29/2008 3:34:14 PM

i played this game like once and realized a few hours in, the shallow nature of it. when i realized that it didnt even fucking matter what kind of eye or leg you picked because it would affect your "evolution" the same way, i was like wow i just got sold some bullshit. i dont think this is the way will wright intended the game to be, but what EA wanted it to be.

9/29/2008 3:42:41 PM

so it doesn't do anything with the way you design the character?

[Edited on September 29, 2008 at 3:53 PM. Reason : -]

9/29/2008 3:52:23 PM

yeah it really doesn't matter what you do... not all that strategic imo. You can basically be a friendly species who gets allies or a military species who whoops ass.

I went military style because trying to impress everyone to make them allies takes to long, you can just run over to them and whoop their ass.

9/29/2008 4:14:50 PM

This game is pretty horrible

9/29/2008 4:26:13 PM