CKMorpheus

I'll end up buying it, of course, but begrudgingly.

Panda Phil

Well we're a couple of weeks away from a possible top selling game release. I keep expecting the Spore hype machine to kick into action, but so far nada. Where are the magazine articles, tv ads, etc?

People should be in here bitching about over exposure by now.

ds6161

edit!!! I read it wrong it is just a pre-loader we still can't play the game... read dummie.. sorry

http://eastore.ea.com/store/ea/en_US...uctID.91619200

I'm waiting for some in depth reviews. Civ 3 & 4 became boring to me way to fast.

Also what is the "Premium 100-page Galactic Handbook" in the $80 Spore Galactic Edition?? the Spore: Prima Official Game Guide is 208 page's.

Supermallet

The Galactic Edition looks really disappointing. I'm just going with the standard game.

CKMorpheus

Supermallet

Huh. Interesting. I might pick it up.

innocentfreak

My friend picked this up last night. I guess some stores have already put them out on the shelf. I am definitely glad I didn't buy it and he is kicking himself for buying it. I will be curious to see what other people think as more people buy it.

We found it to be pretty underwhelming. He enjoyed the creature creator but I didn't. We don't know if he got burned out with the creator or if the game is just that bad. I walked away during the cell stage due to boredom. I found bubble tanks and that other similar browser game which was popular when spore was first previewed more entertaining than the cell stage. The controls were slow and almost unresponsive regardless of how we made the creature. It almost felt like I should be using a controller over a keyboard or mouse. Imagine trying to play Diablo but clicking just moves your guy in the general direction of a mob without actually attacking the mob you clicked on. Then spending a minute or two trying to get your character to actually do something now that you are in range.

I wish I could tell you whether it got better or worse but like I said I walked away out of boredom. I am sure by this weekend he will have gotten further where I can see the other stages. I definitely don't think it is a 49.99 game especially with DRM which was already one of the reasons I was less interested in buying the game.

Flay

I've played the full version for a few hours today. Here are some random thoughts:

- The first four stages are far too easy on normal difficulty. Play on hard for any type of a challenge. I've blown through to the Civilization stage in a few hours of play. I'm betting the space stage is more drawn out.
- There's no death penalty. No stat reduction, no loss of DNA points, no decrease in materials. There's no threat of extinction. You simply re-hatch or re-spawn before continuing. It's very cheap.
- Variations on a creature's physical attributes don't really effect the gameplay on the Tribal or Civilization stages. It's more about how the village or city is created. All that work I did on supposedly perfecting my creature's attributes doesn't really come into play.
- I love the creature and vehicle creators. I think I've spent more time customizing my look than I have been playing the actual game.

I'll have some more concrete thoughts tomorrow after I've experienced a good bit of the Space stage.

Tracer Bullet

Can you install and play the game without an internet connection? I don't have internet access at home right now.

CaptStormy

Do you think the attributes for the reatures may come more into play in the inevitable expansion packs? I personally am looking very much forward to this game.

Panda Phil

Okay, thats three reviews I've read so far that say its basically a sandbox game. Damnit, I've been looking forward to this thing for ages! I may just end up waiting, hoping it hits the bargain bin, or they release a fix/expansion that ups the challenge.

Like I said earlier, I've been very suprised that there hasn't been more mainstream hype (tv ads, etc) on what was supposed to be such a groundbreaking game.

Needless to say I'm really dissapointed.

ds6161

looks like this got way to much hype..

innocentfreak

Yeah you will just be limited to the creatures Maxis created and you create. Then again with the DRM it may require initial activation so you may be out of luck.

Supermallet

1up has their review out:
http://www.1up.com/do/reviewPage?cId=3169768

Final grade is B+. The conclusion:
"As I mentioned earlier, strictly as a game, Spore's a flawed effort in five different genres, smushed together in a casual-player-friendly manner. But as a tangible representation of intelligent design, with an emphasis on creation and sharing, it falls perfectly in line with the rest of Will Wright's work. It's not a perfect game, but it's definitely one that any serious gamer should try."

I thought this bit was pretty funny, though:
"If anything, Spore isn't so much a game as it is an outlet of expression. The fact that you customize nearly everything, from your species' biology (from Cell to Creature) to clothing (Tribal and Civilization) to buildings and vehicles (Civilization and Space), makes Spore a much better "this is how I think" indicator than even the way people design their houses and families in The Sims. While my species and vehicles tend to be of the "I'm just throwing body parts together" mold, my coworker and 1UP.com PC editor-in-chief Jeff Green is oddly obsessed with making a universe full of ducks (to give one example of how bizarrely creative you can get). Now that I've seen this sort of creativity -- and now that the game is out and fellow players are mocking my lame creatures and vehicles -- I'm more inclined to, you know, try to craft something rather than just jam stuff together. Heck, I get a kick out of simply seeing a particular bizarre creature someone made (the last crazy thing I saw was a race of bikers made by some guy with Cyrillic letters in his name), even if I don't interact with it.

Since game sessions are randomly populated with other users' creations, Spore becomes even riper than The Sims for goofy player-generated stories. For instance, one of Jeff's weird duck-people evolved into a rival tribe that attempted to raid my camp for food; I told him about how, in my universe, I wiped his ducks off the map in retaliation. Likewise, in his own game, Jeff took down an epic Nomnom (a giant 1,000-hit-point version of my species) on his homeworld...and let my beloved Manga race become extinct because he was too busy recoloring a planet. But I still have the last laugh, as he claims my spaceships regularly fly in to abduct his ducks."

nickdawgy

Looks like I am canceling my pre-order now.

Panda Phil

Thanks for th elink. Now I'm really torn on whether to get it or not. I suupose I will eventually, finances willing. If the game is anything like the Sims, then hopefully it'll be expanded and made a bit more challenging with future expansions and mods.

And I'd still like to make air and sea dwelling creatures.

Gizmo

I'll grab it for the iPhone. $5 ain't bad for something Ive never played before.

boredsilly

And now the internet is rebelling against the 3-install DRM stuff with tons of 1-star reviews on Amazon. Can't really say I blame them, though all the calls to "make this the most pirated game evarrr!!!11!! To show EA!!!1!!!!" stuff is just bullshit.

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post...y-bad-drm.html

I do think the somewhat lackluster reviews (even though I still think the game would be fun for me) along with the DRM stuff is going to keep me away from an instant purchase.

CKMorpheus

Well I swallowed my pride and picked it up yesterday... Ending up playing til 5am this morning.

Yes, it's overly simplified in the beginning, but in the Civilization stage things got abruptly very difficult... And I ended up as a religious civilization even though I was hoping to be a diplomatic civilization and develop trade routes. Maybe my next time through.

After the initial difficulty change, it became very easy once you take over your first city. Once you start earning enough money, you just keep pumping out your vehicles and overwhelming the other cities, till you have enough other cities to amass enough money to just click the "convert all cities" button, which I found pretty... perplexing.

Now I'm in space, so we'll see how that goes.

All in all I'm having a lot of fun, and I look forward to taking what I learned and applying it to a new game.

Also, for those who used the creature creator, you can log in to your Spore account, and all the guys you submitted will be listed in your creations panel. I even came across some of the guys I created weeks ago during the Creature stage.

nickdawgy

I ended up buying it after all as well, and I liked it. I agree about the sudden difficulty jump at the Civ stage.

A very fun game, and I am looking forward to playing it again.

What's the big deal about the DRM? Some people are calling it spyware? Is it really that big of a deal?

innocentfreak

A good quote from the wikipedia Also most times when you uninstall the game it stays on your system and has been known in the past to cause issues. Most of the time when I try to play securom games I get the message about putting the original disc in the drive even though it is the original disc making it so I have to crack the game to play it.

SmackDaddy

Picked this up after work today. System requirements are fairly low so I figured this would be a perfect game to play on my HTPC on my 51" tv. Looks great!

What a fun game. I hadn't really payed attention this, other than knowing it's basic premise. I've just evolved onto land and am trying to decide who to fight and who to ally with. Pretty darn interesting!

Gotta get back to my Snarkypus on planet Chunkeemunkee!!

Panda Phil

Its the internet. People here aren't happy unless they have something to bitch about.


Brought it home this morning and played through for six hours straight! Its definately addictive, but I'm havign a tough time just making it out of the creature stage. I made a few weak allies early on, but now everyone around me either won't give me the time of day, or are just too tough to kill, so I seem to be stuck at an evolutionary dead end. I had to restart once, simply because my carnivores kept starving to death. Anyone have any suggestions?

boredsilly

I tend to agree, but I think the complaints about this have some validity. The 3 install thing can certainly be patched, so I don't think that's that major.

Supermallet

Either I misread the instructions, or the game didn't explain it very well, so it took me a long time to discover that I can add my own species into my pack. I thought it had to be creatures I had made allies with. Get together three or four of your own guys and go make a killing. Also, make sure you're constantly upgrading your character. Don't forget that when you discard an element, you get the full value of it back to spend on something else. Don't be afraid to mix, match, and try new things.