SPORE

[Orfinn]

Yeah, I was pretty surprised for not seeing a thread about this very promising game from Will Wright here around
Its not like the Sims series (thanks for that!), its about evolution, how life evolves from simple organisms, to creature, which forms a tribe, to flourish into a city civilization and finally into SPACE! Yeah its like 5 kinds of games in one package.

And there have been released a creature creatur thingy for you to create and test out your own homemade creatures, just for show.

Yeah I know this game is published by the dreaded EA, but it seems that they have not interrupted Maxis and ruining their progress on the game, it has been in works for several years now. EA know they will drown in money from this franchise no doubt and that there will be a "few" expansions. But who cares as long as the game is GREAT, revolutionary, fun and not at least: That you and/or your children/cousins/family can learn about evolution in a cutsey kinda way No doubt people will learn easier then, though it seems screaming causual at top, look deeper and there will be a deeper depth to tooherwise simple gameplay.

It will be released for PC, DS and MAC.

EU September 5, 2008
AU September 7, 2008
NA September 7, 2008



To get a rough perspective of this game and some info check this :

http://www.spore.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spore_game

"The games and films with which Wright associated the various phases are:

Pac-Man for the cell phase

Diablo for the creature phase

Populous for the tribal phase

SimCity, Risk, and Civilization for the civilization phase

SimEarth, Destroy All Humans!, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Star Trek and 2001: A Space Odyssey for the space phase, with elements of sandbox gameplay.(DICE 2007 referred to it as similar to Master of Orion.)

The first four phases of the game, if the player minimally uses the editors, will take 10-15 hours to complete. The game will keep track of the evolution of a creature by graphically displaying a timeline, which shows how the creature incrementally changed over the eons. It also keeps track of the creature's achievements, both noteworthy and dubious, as a species.
"[/u]

[danijel1990]

You can also download the trial creature creator from their official site, or order the full one.
It's a fun thing to do until Spore comes out.

[Ethric]

Well it SOUNDS good, but "...it has a proposed limit of 3 times a user can install the product. The installation limit is triggered each time a user changes certain pieces of hardware, reformats the computer, or installs/upgrades a new operating system. Furthermore, when a user uninstalls Spore, the installation count is not reset" (from the wikipedia article, at the bottom).

Can't say I approve of that sort of thing. It shows the attitude of the company behind the product.

[jeff4815]

Do the things that we make in the Spore creature creator have any hold on the actual game? (Can we play as the things we made in the creator?)

[Orfinn]

Theres always a minus Ethric, and Im agree with you. Though the plusses IMO overshadows the not so good stuff.

@Jeff

All of the creatures that are created and gets made at this very moment which are uploaded to the spore page, will automatically be dowloaded to you PC, no worries about it, its just the creatures and they all appear random. The game/computer cheks which kind of creature that suits your planets ecosystem, and if you have evolved a creature that is pretty strong for example, with high attack and much health, the game wont make it so you will rule the planet at day one, there will always be stronger creatures to avoid, group attack and there will always be creatures weak enough for you to hunt and some to sosialize or totally wreak havoc on.

The creatures made in the trial and full version of the creature creator are just one of many editors of the main game and I doubt that you right away can control creatures others have made, Im not sure of it all. We'll see how it works out when it gets released. And im so gonna make Enterprise from TNG when I enter Space s(t)age

[Infiltrator]

EA is behind it, so I'm not really excited about the support it will get nor the installation-friendliness like Ethric noted.

Even if I disregard the above, what's to the game - you basically make the creature which is fun, admittedly, but what's the rest? Playing some half-baked mix of other genres would tire me very, very quickly.

[Grumpy Old Wizard]

Well it SOUNDS good, but "...it has a proposed limit of 3 times a user can install the product. The installation limit is triggered each time a user changes certain pieces of hardware, reformats the computer, or installs/upgrades a new operating system. Furthermore, when a user uninstalls Spore, the installation count is not reset" (from the wikipedia article, at the bottom).

Can't say I approve of that sort of thing. It shows the attitude of the company behind the product.

Yeah, Mass Effect has this same kind of limitation though they don't tell you that on the box. All they say on the box is you need an internet connection. I like the mass effect game but if I had known that limitaation I would not have bought the game.

I have never pirated a game. I understand a company trying to prevent piracy (and I guess they are trying to prevent selling used games here) but there has to be a better way of doing it.

I will never buy a game that I know has such a limitation.

[darknessfood]

I think this game is gonna be HUGE. But i doubt that (well we all know EA) the support is too low, and players will get their stuff somewhere else. I also doubt people will keep playing this, cause the only gimmick about this game is to create your own species. And ik really wouldn't know what else in that game, is going to be fun. Like RTS stuff, we get Starcraft 2 and Red Alert 3. So those WILL be the more played games by RTS fans.
So euhm, this game will pretty much be a hit, but for a small time, that is my point i guess !

[Ethric]

I have never pirated a game. I understand a company trying to prevent piracy (and I guess they are trying to prevent selling used games here) but there has to be a better way of doing it.

I will never buy a game that I know has such a limitation.

There are better ways, but some/most companies can't get over their oldfashioned paranoid aggressiveness.

[Angelspit]

Check out the user reviews on Amazon, out of 260 reviews, 233 have a rating of 1/5 with most (all?) of them talking about DRM. Ouch.

[darknessfood]

Yeah, but DRM is really kinda bullsh*t. I mean, if i buy a movie, it'sjujst for me, i bought the movie, so it's mine and i should be able to look at it as much as i want.
Freaking hel, this game can only be installed 3 F*CKING TIMES. That is SUCH a crappy number. I thought about buying this game, but now that i know this, i wait for the game to be lowered in price, then i'll reconsider...

[Avonu]

Check also "Items mentioned in these reviews" - I wonder why Stardock games are there?

[Metathron]

Yowza.

They sure messed things up big time with the restrictions.

This especially got me nodding my head in agreement:

On a final note, the SecuROM didn't do a thing to stop the pirates: the day after it was released in the UK, a pirated copy was to be found on the internet, SecuROM and price free.

EDIT: Also, have you noticed how none of the GameSpot reader reviews make a mention of DRM? At least none of the ones I've read. I haven't read the site's own review, but I suspect they keep silent about it as well, especially since one user on Amazon says he got a warning from GameSpot when he complained about DRM and they deleted his post.

[Avonu]

It seems that EA learn a lesson from Spore DRM criticism - Red Alert will have 5 installation restriction insted of 3.
(unfortunately I have no link about this news in English)

[Infiltrator]

Right.. I wouldn't call that a learned lesson. Not at all.

[darknessfood]

The DRM is just insane, i i don't know why they would have it.Why not a STEAM like system? THAT is working out great, just install STEAM, make an account, and activate your games you can download it everywhere, everytime, cause thet system knows it's yours. DRM isn't preventing pirating games, i think it's just doing the opposite of what it intentionaly meant to do. BAD EA, BAD!!!

[Avonu]

Right.. I wouldn't call that a learned lesson. Not at all.

Of course they didn't learn anything. You have to use very, very big hammer to put a little sense to their heads.

[ThunderTitan]

I have never pirated a game. I understand a company trying to prevent piracy (and I guess they are trying to prevent selling used games here) but there has to be a better way of doing it.

No, limiting the ppl that bought it to 3 installs while ppl that have it cracked can install it as much as they like is the only way to stop them krimals.



Meh, SPORE's interesting and will prob lead to better games, but frankly it's a bit simplistic.

[Veldrynus]

My creatures:

[Ethric]

I wanted to try this game for the main reason of trying to make creatures out of the Cthulhu-mythos. But it's too bright and cheery for that. And the DRM of course.