Spore.

[George guy]

Just got it. Or rather, my brother got it for the family computer, but whatever.

Installation was a bit of a bitch, at least from the direct download version; I had to dig around in the files to find the actual installer once it downloaded rather than do it through the EA downloader. It's a legitimate paid-for copy, but the DRM system seems to have decided that I can't link my account I made with the Spore Creature Creator (the utility they released for people to play with before the game came out) with Spore proper. All in all this seems a bit sleazy, and I'd further recommend anyone who's going to buy it to get the discs and stay clear of direct downloading. The experience resulted in a perfectly decent Sunday afternoon and evening wasted.

So I can only play it offline at the moment.

Otherwise, it's a blast.

[Kommander]

The DRM on this game has allot of people unhappy. The game is actually down to one star on amazon.com because of all the negative ratings relating to the crappy DRM. The same thing happened to Mass Effect when it was released for PC. The best/worst part of all of this is that despite EAs best efforts there is already a hacked version available off the file sharing sites. So EA essentially pissed off a bunch of people for no reason.

[mekender]

another fabulous example on how making things harder on people that follow the rules does nothing to stop those that dont care about them.

[George guy]

To paraphrase Princess Leia, the more they tighten their grip, the more users will slip right through their fingers. This is not to encourage piracy, but the fact is that the economics of recording media and Internet connections ensures that in this age, people are going to have a low tolerance for any tedious hoops they have to jump through to do things the right way. It's like computer games in the early '90s (Prince of Persia 2 and TIE Fighter come to mind) where you had find the code word/picture on a particular page of the user manual to keep playing. It's tedious enough to make those who are largely honest people want to circumvent that crap.

Yes, you don't own the actual game, just a piece of recording media with a copy of the game and the rights to use that one copy. But it starts to feel like some kind of techno-feudalism when they start claiming lordship over your computer, or requiring tedious hoop-jumping when you've already given them your money.

That said, Spore is fun. I've found it a bit challenging to get a creature to become an omnivore when starting from the cell stage. This is because you can only start as either a carnivore or herbivore, and you have to find body parts to unlock them, and that includes the omnivore mouth. And with all the big nasty predators, the natural priority is mobility and self-defense over a new mouth. It seems as though whatever label is pinned on you at the end of the cell stage determines what the first set of mouths is that you will unlock in the creature stage.

[DougWojtowicz]

The Spore Creature Creator's still up and free, right?

'Cuz I'm tempted to play God.

PS: I never had that problem with my copy of Tie Fighter. I must have gotten a "best of" copy that stripped that garbage.

[mekender]

The Spore Creature Creator's still up and free, right?

'Cuz I'm tempted to play God.

PS: I never had that problem with my copy of Tie Fighter. I must have gotten a "best of" copy that stripped that garbage.

i think it was x-wing that had the little sheet... i dont know for sure, i think my original boxes are in storage somewhere... im too lazy to go get it...

[DougWojtowicz]

Tie Fighter made me a good and loyal follower of Admiral Thrawn (and Emperor Palpatine).

[mekender]

so... is spore worth getting?

[crazylegs]

I'm really pumped about getting this game (Massive Wright fan, I had Simcity on my Super Nintendo as a kid. ) But I may consider waiting to get this one. My computer could use a few upgrades, and I want to give them some time to do some debugging on the DRM.

I've heard that the DRM they're using is actually watered down from what they were originally going to go with. Originally, the DRM was going to reverify that your copy was legit EVERY time you accessed the sporepedia. Eventually the awaiting fans shot down that idea, many of them telling EA that they wouldn't buy a game with such draconian nonsense.

MAXIS, I hope I don't have to add that name to the growing list of companies that EA has raped and pillaged into obliteration.

Oh, and now that SPORE is in the can, do you think that Will Wright is going to get in gear and make a proper Sim City Sequel? That Societies game was trash. I'm still playing 4 for now.

[mekender]

got it today... played all the way to the space era... its a bit simplistic, but its entertaining. Looks like the space part will be much longer than the rest of the game was.