Spore

List Price: $49.99 Discount Price: Too low to display

Features:

• Epic journey from the origin and evolution of life through the development of civilization and technology and outer space exploration
• Play any way you choose in the five evolutionary phases of Spore: Cell, Creature, Tribe, Civilization, and Space
• Grow, evolve, interact with and battle other cultures, and conquer the planet
• Visit literally millions of planets full of other player's creations
• Single-player game provides unlimited worlds to explore and play

Accessories:
Spore: Prima Official Game Guide (Prima Official Game Guides)	Spore Limited Edition Bundle: Prima Official Game Guide	Spore: The Evolution (Prima Official Game Guides)

Customer Reviews:

Shallow, but fun game. DRM makes me cry. [Posted on 2008-09-30]
I purchased spore because I am a staunch supporter of Will Wright, and I like the way he thinks. The game has been geared to appeal to the "mass audience" which, I guess, is largely aiming for people who don't play video games. Each stage can be played through with your own custom creature, but largely the goals and missions of each stage don't change:

Cell = Eat and grow and stay alive.
Creature = Eat and make friends or wipe out enemies
Tribal = make friends or wipe out enemies
Civ = make friends or wipe out enemies
Space = explore, colonize, terraform, and (yes) make friends or wipe out enemies.

While Space is amazing, and worth the price all by itself, the rest of the spore experience feels really shallow and kinda pointless. And once you're in space, you can only play it for so long before realizing you've seen all there is to see, and that every planet you explore is much like the last planet you saw. Worse, confined to your spaceship, there's precious little reason to care about which particular herbivore inhabits whatever planet you see. There are literally millions of planets, and none of them are worth exploring.

And that's the game in a nutshell. Not bad, but not great. Definitely fell short of its potential.

Now, let's discuss the DRM, shall we? EA is of the believe that, if they do not treat EVERY one of their customers like criminals, some of them will act like criminals. When you buy the game, you're allowed to install it 3 times, total. That means, for example, that if you have a family computer and a kids computer, that you'll burn up 2/3rds of your installations on your first trial. And these installations cannot be logged in concurrently (so if you did put it on your kids computer, they wouldn't be able to play at the same time as you). If you need to reinstall for any reason, your copy can be flagged as hitting the limit. If this happens, you actually won't be able to play the game you
purchased until you call EA's customer service and get them to help you.

To accomplish this task, EA makes use of Securom, a DRM program that installs itself on your computer, and becomes a permanent fixture (even if you remove the game). EA is currently being sued over the use of Securom in their software.

Anyway, EA has said they wish to loosen the restrictions, both by increasing the number of installations and allowing for people to de-authorize installations, but they haven't yet. Until they do, and until they provide some way of removing Securom when you remove Spore from your computer, the game does NOT justify the DRM-based treatment.

Let's focus on the actual GAME not associated software [Posted on 2008-10-01]
I have been really excited for this game for about 2 years now, since I first saw a preview video about it. I would have written on here sooner but I wanted to wait until I reached the space stage so I could have a well formed opinion. Like I said, I was very excited for the game so I was surprised to log on to amazon to buy it when I saw the 1.5 stars that it has managed to achieve. After reading through the reviews and seeing that almost all of them rate the game with at least 4 stars but then give it 1 star due to DRM issues I decided to give it a go. I AM GLAD I DID. This game is truly groundbreaking. I know there are complaints that it is too easy or dumbed down, but I really think that these complaints are coming from either A) Adolescents that have nothing better to do with their time than play video games (I really really miss those days) or B) 30 Year old guys that live in their parents basement while hoping that Mrs. Right will be delivering their next pizza and the rest will be history. I am not a "hardcore gamer"...I'm kind of like the cinemax version of porn in the gamer world. I would like to be a real gamer, I even may give the appearence of a real gamer, but when it comes down to it I'm just a cheap skin flick where you'll get to see a couple boobs. Back to the game though, Spore is easy to pick up and play because each stage is SIMILAR to games that you have probably played before, although each stage is less complex than its full-version counterpart they are still quite fun and it took me probably about 5-6 days playing about 1-2 hours a night to finally reach the Space stage which is supposed to be longer than all the other stages combined. With that being said you can't look at this game as 5 individual games because the first 4 won't stand up when compared to other similar games. The space stage is another story. This game needs to be viewed as one whole game. It is somehow very satisfying to design everything about your game all the way through. I have some purple dinosaur dude that has feathers in his hat and shoots a "spit attack" out of his crotch...now if that doesn't inspire you to buy the game I don't know what will. Now about the stages individually

-Cell stage----short but fun. Basically eat smaller crap than you while avoiding bigger crap all while collecting sweet parts to use on your little fella at a later time.

Creature stage----This part is sweet. Run around fighting other species to prove your awesomeness over them. Or you can impress them by dancing around and singing like a fool. Its funny though because there is an "Alpha Creature" for each species who is the leader of the pack and all his little creatures follow him around and protect him. I don't know why that excites me come to think of it...oh well. On the bright side you can get a little pack of your own going if you impress other creatures enough. Your pack will then fight with you or work to impress other creatures with you.

The Tribal Stage--- You've done it. You've asserted your dominance enough that your brain has grown or something and now your nest realizes "Wow...we really ARE stronger if we do this together" and you all form a tribe. Welcome to the rts...go out and fight those other tribes with your sweet self designed warriors wearing whatever armor you put on them etc. You can get different kinds of weapons with differnet effects too...hammers, spears, etc.

Civilization Stage--- This one was fun. There is only one resource which I keep reading everyone complaining about but the way I look at it this actually made the stage more fun. Spice = Money. Therefore it was a constant battle to conquer other city's spice mines to increase my cash flow while cutting them off from theirs. I will say that I wish there were more options in terms of vehicles/upgrades to make my vehicle better than the enemy's. This stage basically comes down to overwhelming the enemy with as many airplanes as you can possibly acquire. I will say on the bright side that I nuked somebody...with a bomb. Try it youll have fun.

Space Stage (drum roll please)----I got into this stage last night and this is pretty much the reason that I felt like I had to get on here and tell you all to buy it. I don't even know if I can describe the space stage and do it justice. Basically think large scale...bigger....bigger...ok right about there. You leave your planet and venture around the solar system...and then leave the solar system and see a crap ton of stars each with their own solar system...you can visit each of these systems and each planet and moon in each system. It's ridiculous. The only thing I can say is that I probably would have paid 50 bucks just for the space stage, so you should definitely pick up this game if you are even slightly interested.

Great game, great fun [Posted on 2008-10-01]
Wow, from reading these reviews it appears 90% of the 1-star people are basically software pirates. What makes you think you should be allowed to install your game on as many PCs as you want? And what's so hard about unregistering a license so you can install it on a 4th machine if YOU REALLY NEED 4 installs?

I will not address the DRM. It is EA's absolute right and responsibility to protect their assets through copy protection.

I love the game. The graphics are superb, the game play is great fun, and the creature and structure creation is magnificent. The level of detail you are allowed exceeds any game I've ever seen before.

It's important to know that the game is basically a 'race to space', there are indeed 5 stages, but the first 4 are pretty short and really just set you up for the special powers you'll have at the space stage. The space stage is... immense. I've never seen a game as vast as this, not ever. Your range of motion is an entire galaxy and literally thousands of solar systems and 10s of thousands of planets. You can spend AS MUCH TIME as you want in this stage. However, reaching end-game is an issue. With over 100 hours in, I'm not sure I'm even close. I've tried to avoid spoilers but the one I did read about ending the game tells me I'm still a long way off. However, the badge system and upgrades you receive are very rewarding and make the game fun for scores of hours, even if you never do "finish."

Overall I recommend this game. It is even more fun for my kids who love to just replay the first 4 stages and create unique creatures, buildings, and vehicles.

Do not let the DRM be a deterrent. It's irrelevant and will not hamper your enjoyment of the game. And unless you feel the need to reinstall windows every week, deactivating each copy won't be a hindrance either.

Get this game.

drm infected [Posted on 2008-10-01]
This game is DRM infected, and may be unusable by many common configurations. The requirements also make using the software problematic, for example, if you upgrade hardware in your computer.

Great Game! [Posted on 2008-10-01]
Great game! Incredible depth and very entertaining. Really like the editor, the graphics and interface are nice. My youngest daughter (13 years old) enjoys the game -- she really likes the character interaction...and the endless possibilities she can create... (oh ya, she also loves the iPhone version too!!!). Outstanding job the team at Maxis and also Will Wright's vision in giving us another incredible, creative game. You'll have a blast!!

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