Damn you Electronic Arts!

I was up past 2am playing mother f-ing spore... very addictive... they've done it again!

I have yet to buy it due to the SecureROM and limited installs available. I did d/l and play it offline it is very cool, too bad I won't be able to buy it from them I have been looking forward to it for years.

I'm right there with you! At least before Ike took out my power and phone

Definitely a fun and addicting game, but having more or less played through all of it, it is a bit disappointing in retrospect.

There's no real strategy for creature design, you just look at the stats of the appendages/etc, other than that everything is purely cosmetic. Nothing you do in each stage really helps you in the next stage. By the time you get to the last stage, all the 'design' becomes purely cosmetic and doesn't affect the gameplay, which takes much of the fun out of it, IMO. Maybe some people are more into the cosmetic side, but for me, the novelty of designing a weird-looking creature/car/boat/spacecraft/etc wore off by around the third stage, since it really didn't matter. As I've seen stated elsewhere, it's really 5 mini-games all rolled into one... and while the whole progression and continuity is really cool and immersive, when you stop and think about it, none of the individual stages is really as good as it could be, and for the most part they've all sort of been done better in other games - for example, the civilization stage is nothing but a really, really dumbed-down real-time strategy game.

Now I've gotten quite a way through the galactic stage and don't see all that much more point in continuing. I've unlocked most all the tools, so now I just have to go ahead and continue doing the same thing over and over to continue conquering the ridiculously huge universe, for no real gain other than to force myself to spend even MORE time running around stopping environmental disasters and pirate attacks on my existing planets which seem to be inhabited by defenseless sissies, and gaining more money which I can't really use for anything cool or fun, but rather just to continue my monotonous conquest.

It's definitely a really easy, intuitive game to learn to play, and very addicting and fun, but the dumbed-down simplicity really limits the depth in certain ways. There is SO much more potential for them to add depth and make the game so much better, IMO, and there are rumors that some future patches or expansion packs may take care of that... I will keep my fingers crossed.

Tenchiro said:

I have yet to buy it due to the SecureROM and limited installs available. I did d/l and play it offline it is very cool, too bad I won't be able to buy it from them I have been looking forward to it for years.

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I feel lame for not understanding...

why is SecureROM a bad thing? is it a potential rootkit exploit, or just copyright technology you don't agree with (in which case I probably won't like it either).

I think Spore seems interesting, but I don't need another time-waster.

Playing the first stage I thought the game was awesome.

Second stage is interesting for a little bit but really repetitive.

Third stage IMO is pathetic. I was able to simply crush all my enemies without doing anything but rushing their villages with a bunch of units.

Maybe the last two stages will redeem the game? It's a neat concept for a game but the execution is kinda bleh.

Malkore, here's a synopsis on why EA games used to be cool, but now is going onto my On Notice list.

Does DRM guarantee Spore is destined for extinction? | Hardware 2.0 | ZDNet.com

Follow the link for the amazon.com reviews. Rather humorous that out of 2,687 customer reviews, 87% of them were 1 star.

Here's what SecuROM does. It basically acts like a root kit, bypasses your admin privelidges and spys on you to make sure you're not trying to copy the disc.

BTW, I 'aquired' my copy, and after tinkering with it a bit I'm glad I did. I'm not judging it yet, but so far I'm not as impressed as I thought I'd be. I shudder to think what they'll do with the next SimCity game.

I agree with most of you..

Cool concept.. But I hate the fact that I can go from a crazy lizard thing to a 10 legged bear in one mating.. lol

I played through all the stages in one straight sitting.

Meh, I'm glad I didn't pay for it (based on the gameplay alone, the DRM is just stinky icing on the garbage cake).

Interesting concept, but rather bland execution. It's a neat sandbox for creating creatures and buildings, but that's the only aspect of it that's fun for more than 5 minutes. Bad AI makes each of the stage less fun/challenging and more tedious/irritating.

*backs slowly out of this thread and hopes no one remembers his answer to the "What is your job?" thread*

BerserkerBrew said:

*backs slowly out of this thread and hopes no one remembers his answer to the "What is your job?" thread*

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!YOU! It's all your fault!:fro:

At least I can't accuse you of killing one of the greatest team based online FPS series ever *cough*Reign*cough*and*cough*his*cough*cronies*.

malkore said:

I feel lame for not understanding...

why is SecureROM a bad thing? is it a potential rootkit exploit, or just copyright technology you don't agree with (in which case I probably won't like it either).

I think Spore seems interesting, but I don't need another time-waster.

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For one it does nothing to prevent Piracy, Spore was available for download a week before it hit the shelves. It also punishes the paying customers, by essentially adding more restrictions to their copy than the free copy you can get by over the torrents.

In spores case it allows only 3 copies of the game to be installed ever. Essentially if you were to install it on two PC's at home and ended up formatting and installing again then you are out. If you ever buy a new PC or want to play it at a friends then you have to buy a new copy of the game. Basically making it a rental. It also destroys the aftermarket game industry, again turning your purchase into more of a rental.

Not to mention the rootkit functionality that basically limits or disables your PC's functionality and in some cases can open backdoors and lead to security issues. People have reported that it disabled their CD/DVD burners, interfered with Anti-Virus functionality and destabilized their systems to the point of needing to re-install the OS. It has also been reported to actually destroy some drives due to the way it causes them to read/write in ways the manufacturers never intended.

All that and it does nothing to deter the piracy it is intended to stop.

I should mention that Valve's DRM implementation with Steam is really what the industry should be shooting for. Again it does nothing to stop piracy, but it adds some nice benefits to the paying customer.

If you are at a friends house, you can simply download and log into steam and have access to any game on your account simply by downloading them via Steam. It adds social networking to the mix allowing you to not only chat with friends but find the server they are logged into easily and makes joining them a snap.

Tenchiro said:

All that and it does nothing to deter the piracy it is intended to stop.

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That's the best part. The ONLY people who have to deal with it are their paying customers. Those customers find that it's easier to just crack the game than deal with their support, and become pirates. Because of this "spike" in piracy, EA implements stupider restrictions. Seeing a cycle here?