| Spore (Mac/PC DVD) | 
| From: Electronic Arts
Category: Video Games
List Price: £39.99
Buy New: £23.00
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New (8) Used (4) from £23.00
Rating:  561 reviews
Platforms: Windows Xp, Windows Vista
Genre: life-simulation-games
Media: Video Game
Age: 11 - 18 years
Operating System: Mac OS X
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 7.4 x 5.4 x 0.6
EAN: 5030930057060
ASIN: B000FN7K2S
Release Date: September 5, 2008
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.co.uk Preview
From the creator of The Sims comes the most ambitious video game ever made: here you don't just control a single family or city but control an entire species from a single cell organism to a galactic conqueror. As impossibly complex as that might sound, the most impressive thing about Spore is just how accessible and fun it all is. The game is split into six evolutionary phases, starting with almost action-style gameplay at the microscopic level. From there you move to the creature phase on dry land, before going on to the tribal phase and the beginnings of society and technology. From there it's onto the city phase, which plays a bit like SimCity, and from there to the Civilisation phase which plays something like, you guessed it, Civilization. The final phase takes part in outer space where by hook or by crock your species must reign triumphant.Each phase has its own editing tools associated with it for things like vehicles and buildings. By far the most fun though is the creature tool, which allows you to create your own fully animated lifeform from scratch using a huge range of limbs, facial features and colourings. What's also interesting is that the other planets in the galaxy aren't all pre-populated by the game. Instead, by connecting online you can upload your races, and download those from other people, to fill the galaxy with civilizations from other players around the world. Any one of the six phases would normally be enough for any one game on its own, but this looks like it's going to turn out to be the world's first everything simulator.
HARRISON DENT
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| Customer Reviews:
 DRM is worse than you think. September 12, 2008
F. Bryant
339 out of 363 found this review helpful
If you buy spore you'll probably be tempted to take it back to the shop after a couple of hours play. I know it can be tempting to see what its like, so find a friend who has it and try it out. Whatever you do, don't spend your money.
First, the DRM aspect:
If you're thinking: "Why is everyone annoyed at the DRM thing? I only install games once or twice anyway."
That is exactly what EA want you to think.
The install limit is not just deducted everytime you reinstall the game, there are many other factors such as windows or hardware updates which will result in your limit reducing. Say you or a parent upgrades your PC or reset windows, you will be losing install numbers without even noticing. If the game is having problems and you need to reinstall, EA says that's your fault, and it will cost you. If you install the game on your laptop and PC, that will cost you too.
"So what's the problem, if I reach my limit I'll just phone up EA?"
Heh, the last word is definately the one to emphasize. Many have already reported having to wait days to get more points on their limit, some are simply denied. You will need to take time (and money, yes you pay for the call per minute) out of your day to beg EA to let you continue playing YOUR game. You will need to apologize to EA for installing YOUR game that YOU paid for with YOUR money too many times. Exceeding the installation limit is seen as an error on your part and EA arn't pleased they're having to waste their time fixing your game so you can play more. Thus, they charge you whilst you call.
That call centre won't be around forever, in a few years time you won't own the game, you'll just have a useless CD and case, you're effectively renting the game for full price.
If you don't protest, this will become the industry standard.
It doesn't matter what you're thinking at this stage.
You CANNOT let EA get away with this.
For those of you interested in the actual game:
I guarantee, this part was written with all DRM thoughts out of my head.
Without a doubt some of the worst gameplay ever.
Imagine with this concept how amazing a game like this could be, then scrap it and replace it with some mini and incredably limited design program which lets you attach horns to your creature, the result will be similar to Spore. In other words, the game is a prime example of something that "lowers the bar".
The idea of being able to evolve your own creature is incredably tempting and Spore had the potential to be a ground breaking innovative game. The problem? It's unbelievably basic and oh so simple you'll feel a desperate urge to do something more productive with your time. Unfortunately in this case, despite the gameplay being incredably basic it's also very tedious and you'll be doing the same thing over and over again.
That's the first real problem with the game, a 6 year old wouldn't struggle. The other problem is the stages.
The creator of the Maxis games responded to critical reviews with: "I've all kinds of people say they hate different stages, there's no consistant critisism."
Yes it's true, some stages are far better than others, but it's the staging of the game that ruins it, I'm amazed the developers didn't realise this. The game would've been far better if it had run consistantly (i.e. you build a city on your planet, then have all that city and the ability to operate it whilst you're exploring space) but sadly this is not the case. There are 5 stages, whenever one starts, only your creature data is passed over (which isn't much, just the visual appearance really) and nothing else. Once you've finished the stage, there is very little point continuing as you will have maxed out most things. The huge flaw is due to the fact the game is simply split into these 5 stages, thus effectively making 5 "mini games", not one of these games is worth the money you're paying for the game, and so it's never actually all that fun.
The first "Water" stage is one of the best, which is incredably worrying since it's a very simple 2D minigame of a fish swimming around collecting food and DNA points. This is the one point in the game where the evolution idea actually works, its well implemented (adding spikes to the right parts makes a difference), and it's actually fun. It lasts about 15 minutes and you'll soon be excited about developing your creature further.
That all changes with the second "Creature" stage, your creature has evolved legs and can now walk on land. The planet looks incredably dull and you won't be looking at anything whilst moving around as there's nothing to grasp your eye. Your objectives for this stage are to kill or make friends with other species, and change your appearance and skills. Once again, it's incredably basic and any form of combat involves constantly clicking a button or two. If you've ever played an MMORPG, it is very much like an offline version. That's right, the tasks are all "Kill X amount of Y, go back, do it again". The result is something dull, tedious, effortless, pointless and it's at this point where you'll be planning your journey back to the video game store. Infact I still find it incredably they've taken one of the major flaws with MMOs (grinding) and topped it off by putting it in an offline game...
The next "Tribe" stage is the icing on the cake. Your creature is now fully developped and you can't change it's appearance or features anymore, that part of the game is completely over and it never was put to much use anyway. The whole concept of Spore is over in a couple of hours, of which included about 15 minutes of fun. The stage itself is practically laughable, you'll be fighting other tribes in one of the worst attempts at an RTS (real-time-strategy) of all time. You'll be doing very little and end up leaving your computer on, hoping that it eventually completes to the next stage itself. Here I have to mention something about the advertising and hype of the game, here is a quote from the game author on this stage:
"A lot of people don't realize that there are actually some simple strategies for gathering food in Tribe. You can steal it from other tribes. You can domesticate wild animals and they'll come live with you. You don't have to hunt other creatures; you can domesticate them. If you manage to domesticate a really strong creature and he's sitting in your pen behind your hut, he'll actually help defend your tribe as well."
Sounds interesting huh, all those possibilities... Well guess what. All those activities are done with more or less 1 or 2 clicks of the mouse in Spore, and they are down-right pointless. This is the problem. There is no real multi-tasking involved and very little to actually do. You're always following a strict path which is very dull and tedious, if you take alternate routes, they are pointless and not worth taking. This is what annoys me, the way the game is talked about and hyped by the developers and some reviewers which could only have been bribed or played the first stage only. The game is actually incredably cheap and takes huge amounts of short cuts in order to give the player something to do.
The gameplay in areas is just absolutely awful, it's as if it wasn't planned at all. It's not entertaining to just sit there clicking the same two buttons for 2 hours.
I won't go into the last 2 stages, but I will admit that they are slightly better. There is more effort put into them and they do at least have a reasonable amount of gameplay. However, this is instantly countered by the fact you may aswell go buy another game similar to the genre of that stage and it will be a great deal better. The game does not flow very well between phases, and thus the programming behind Spore is reasonably basic with no clever outcomes.
Infact, the game really shouldn't have taken long to make at all. Most likely so much time was made on each and every stage, it stopped the game from really excelling anywhere. The game does a good job at making the creatures "cute", but that won't blind many people of how empty it actually is.
This review is long I'm aware, but I'm really hoping I got the point across. Do not buy this game, if you are tempted to try it then find alternative methods such as playing with a friend.
Spore is a massive dissapointment and is quite frankly, a pathetic attempt at what could've easily been a ground breaking game, had they put in the effort and planning.
 DRM aside I actually think this is an awful game! September 10, 2008
Tristan J. Henser-Brownhill (Sheffield, UK)
222 out of 248 found this review helpful
The DRM stuff is bad, very bad, but has been talked about so much it's pointless raising it as an issue in this review. Personally I don't care about it because, DRM aside I still think the game is really shallow and boring and see no reason for more than three installs...
1: Cell stage: Awesome! Ever played that free flash game by Xgen called Fishy? Yeah, that but with a customizable fish which you can add spikes, different mouths and different propulsion systems to. Too bad it last about erm... TEN MINUTES... fifteen if you're lucky enough to be bad at it. 9/10 one knocked off because of how short it is.
2: Creature stage: Definitely good fun, especially a nice surprise to see flying creatures done well. I don't like the fact that they took out all the stuff they hyped which meant how you designed your creature would have affected how it moved/speed/stealth etc. and replacing it with basic stat based parts e.g. "This mouth is better than that mouth it has 4 attack as opposed to 2" even though it doesn't look as good..., that sucks, big time. It limits what your creature can actually look like because you have to think about the points that make it move quicker and not how it stands or how long it's legs are for example. Now it's a simple RPG game. It was going to be there originally so why did they take it out?!? Ignoring what I was expecting and taking it with an open mind though, it was fun. 8/10
3: Tribe stage: It's okay for a dumbed down Age of Empires... too bad how I evolved my critter doesn't matter anymore one bit and that all my clothes don't fit properly, but have to be added if I want any kind of stat boost in order to take over other tribes... Also it's ridiculously easy if you choose the passive route. You just drop them a nice gift so they like you. Then dance at them occasionally pressing a button when it highlights until they become your allies. Military route is a little tougher but is still repetitive and boring and easy when you get the hang of it. You simply equip your little dudes with little axes and destroy their "main hut" which then explodes (along with their other little huts for some reason) and you've beaten that tribe even though they're all still alive well. Meh... 6/10
4: Civilization stage: Good points: fully customizable vehicles & buildings. Bad points: Terrible camera controls in the creator make it very frustrating to design the building how you want etc. you should at least be able to zoom out a bit to fit your whole building on the damn screen. It's as if they took the creature editor, and then tacked it onto the civ stage in order to let you make vehicles etc. by simply exchanging the parts without actually testing whether it could even be used for this task properly. Oh and, no more creature interaction at all in this stage by the way, and you could have made them limbless eyeless blobs, it wouldn't make a difference to anything as now you simply control a grand selection of three boring vehicles to do your work. About those... Yeah if you made them well they may look good, but how you design your vehicles makes zero difference to their animation besides how they move (wheels/walkers etc.) for example; you put 4 huge lazer turrets on it, it fires a homing cannon ball, upwards. You put a missile launcher on it, it fires a homing cannon ball, upwards. etc. Now whats the point in allowing me to choose different weapons for my tanks if they all shoot the same dodgy canon ball which clips from the middle of my tank upward into the sky and falls like a homing mortar until it hits whatever I right clicked on? and pretty much everything else in this stage is badly done or boring too. I'm not even going to go into the non military route of religious tanks that sing propaganda at the other tanks until they, well... explode... yeah that's right, explode O_o... Oh dear. I mean propaganda may be able to do that to some people but I've not seen it happening much in my part of town... Anyway moving on... I'll describe it as the worlds simplest and most boring futuristic RTS game. (I can't see where the civilization stuff is supposed to be here). 3/10
5: Space stage: Again, just insanely boring and repetitive, you now only control your spaceship and it's fun(ish) for a while but what you can do with it is less than I'd hoped and generally pretty dull. 3/10
TOTAL 4/10
I was looking forward to this game; I'm a casual gamer not a hardcore gamer, so low difficulty I can put up with, but when a game isn't actually fun, as Peter Griffin would say, "it really grinds my gears." I think they should of sold the cell and creature stage in a bundle for 5 as opposed to the whole pile of dung for a RRP of 40...
Don't waste your money, have a go on a disappointed friends before they run out of installs, haha.
Too short and easy with crippling DRM September 8, 2008
M. Dyson
211 out of 235 found this review helpful
Firstly the DRM, it's SO very restrictive. You have 3 activations and 3 activations only with this product. All must be done over the internet and when you are done with those 3 and want another you must call EA and ask them for a new one with proof of purchase and explaining why you have run out of your 3.
Now, the game itself.
Don't get me wrong, it can be fun. However, if you were looking forward to the long fun game that the trailers and hype have promised then please, take your money elsewhere, or wait until the game is in the bargin bin a few months down the road. I am by no means a hardcore gamer, far from it, but I had gotten to the UFO level in my first day of playing on the normal (not easy) level (that's 4/5 [80%] of the game).
Wait 6 months and pick it up as a budget title.
Maxis fails to deliver September 8, 2008
Shaun Friedle (England)
112 out of 123 found this review helpful
The biggest problem with this game is how limited it is compared to what it could be and what I think we were led to believe it would be.
Think about how varied animals are in real life, how many different environments they are adapted to live in, how different they are, their size, their biology, their behaviour, their diet, etc.
Now look at Spore. There is precisely one environment your creature can live in at a given stage, and that's the water in cell stage and the temperate land every other stage. There are precisely 3 diets - any vegetation, any meat or both. Customisation is limited to selecting body parts that will allow a few different attack moves, a few different socialisation moves and a few abilities which don't really matter very much. You can create an animal without arms or legs but the fact the game only provides a single environment which isn't well suited to it and the game also seems to have its idea of what the "correct" path for evolution is it's pretty pointless to do so.
Where are the animals which live in the sea, where are the animals that live underground and in caves, where are the birds (you can glide a short distance, but you're still essentially a land animal), where are the parasites, where are the differences in cold blooded versus hot blooded animals, where is the VARIATION? Creatures can be made to look different but they are basically all the same with a few inconsequential differences.
The second main problem I have is there's really no evolution by natural selection at all in this game sadly. What features a creature has is not affected in any way by what came before, you can completely remove all features and completely reshape your creature in one fell swoop. The one tiny nod to evolution is the way your creature has behaved at a stage can give it one of three sets of abilities when it moves onto the next stage, but this has nothing to do with its physical characteristics. It's a shame really since this could have educated children somewhat on how evolution works and in this incarnation it does the exact opposite.
Sadly the one area I was most interested in seems to be of almost no importance to the game, and the longest part of the game (in space) is incredibly tedious.
I would have given the game 3 stars for sort of having an interesting idea but failing to implement it in any meaningful way, but I'm going to give it one star for the DRM.
Sadly lacking in depth September 10, 2008
A. Kerrison (UK)
108 out of 121 found this review helpful
If you are around ten years of age, or alternatively if you're the type who enjoyed spending hours customising your Sims or decorating their house, you will probably enjoy this game.
However... if, like me, you're the type who enjoys deep strategy games or open-ended RPGs, and you were hoping Spore might deliver a wonderful blend of the two based on evolution, survival, and technological progress, you'll get very little from Spore.
Spore is broken down into 5 stages. None seem to contain any meaningful choices beyond what your creature looks like and whether it's warlike or peaceful. It's an extremely linear progression rather then an open-ended sandbox experience.
The first stage is the cell stage. This is a fairly enjoyable arcade-style affair, with the basic goal of eating things smaller than you (or plants, if you prefer to go veggie) and avoiding things bigger than you. Defeating creatures will unlock new parts you can 'evolve' with, but there are only half a dozen to find so it will not take you long. The whole stage will most likely be finished in 10-20 minutes, which is a shame because it's the least disappointing stage in the game - the only real let down being that you are forced to evolve to the next stage when it feels like you're still very small and primitive compared to the other creatures floating around.
The second stage is the creature stage. Here you are stricly a nest dwelling omnivore/herbiove/carnivore - no other options exist. You can defeat or befriend other creatures in order to gain DNA points, until you eventually have enough to advance. This stage might last you an hour or two, but as with the previous stage there is no consequence to death and so few options that even on the most difficult setting you'll inevitably get through it without too much trouble. The customisation options for your creature are fun, but due to the way different parts have different 'ability points', you'll find yourself having to choose between your creature's effectiveness and the way it looks. This would be fine by me if the game mechanics for this made sense - but they don't. I can have six 'spikes', and they'll be as effective as just one. Yet I can take a single Ram's horn (the 'upgraded' evolution of a spike, according to Maxis) and find it vastly more effective. It makes no sense.
The third and fourth stages (tribal and civilisation) are fairly similar in that they both resemble extremely simplistic RTS games which offer virtually no options and absolutely no challenge (even on the hardest setting) to anyone who's played an RTS before, and would receive scores of around 1/10 or 2/10 if released as separate games. Having your created creatures/buildings/vehicles do the running around is a nice novelty, but a novelty does not result in good gameplay.
The final stage is the space stage, and whilst it's better than the previous few stages - obviously most of the development time was spent here - it doesn't offer you much more than a space exploration game with some novelty terraforming gizmos to play with. Given that you can only have a single ship and have to micromanage virtually everything in your empire, it's also extremely tedious. It's certainly no Master Of Orion or Galactic Cilivisations.
Overall, Spore is a collection of 5 extremely sub-standard games, moulded together with the gimmick of being able to customise a few things and see your own creations do it all. It would be great if doing it all were much fun, but the whole experience is so very shallow and linear that you might as well just buy the creature creator instead and enjoy 90% of the fun that those who buy the full game will have.
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