| Spore (Mac/PC DVD) | 
| From: Electronic Arts
Category: Video Games
List Price: £39.99
Buy New: £26.51
You Save: £13.48 (34%)
New (10) Used (10) from £23.00
Rating:  523 reviews
Sales Rank: 36
Platforms: Windows Xp, Windows Vista
Genre: life-simulation-games
Media: Video Game
Age: 11 - 18 years
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
Condition: Brand New - SAMEDAY DESPATCH - Insured Delivery and 12 months Warranty
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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: Read 518 more reviews...
 Bored within days October 14, 2008
Rod the Worm (England)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
After pre-ordering this game on the strength of the E3 demo found on YouTube, I was more than a little worried to hear about the issues this game has. I thought I'd give it a go regardless, and frankly I'm very disappointed.
First off, the game is ridiculously short. I reached the space stage in a night. The tidepool phase is like a freeware game off a phone, the creature phase is just about redeemable, tribal and civilisation phases are the most simplistic RTSes ever created (one unit of each type without even working to research better weapons? Are you kidding me?), and the space stage makes you the general dogsbody for other alien races instead of giving you the power to create worlds and speces as you see fit.
Ok, yes, you may eventually get that power, but I'm not playing through weeks' worth of collecting creature X from planet Y for aliens Z, or shooting plague infected animals before they spread it to the rest of the world (and why can't the tanks and aeroplanes they have on the planet do that instead of my supposedly awesome spaceship covered in guns that only act as decoration?) before I get to do that.
Ok, yes, creating a creature that could fly around in packs and eviscerate anything it came across was amusing for a while, but that was just supposed to be one phase near the beginning of the game, not the best point of it.
The thing that gets me is that I was lied to by the advertising. That's not counting the fact that it was implied that the game would take you quite a long time to do by the way, or any other implication, I'm talking flat out lies.
1: Underwater creature stage between cell and moving to land - didn't appear in the final game.
2: Procedural generation. Mixable commands such as dragging? There in the preview, not in the game. Speed based mainly on leg layout? No, just based on what FOOT you have. A single raptor-style foot on a short stubby leg will be faster than four long, hooved legs. Slightly off topic, Elephant/hippo/duck feet are faster than horse's hooves, despite the latter being virtually perfect for speed. In fact, horse hooves are one of the slowest. No, I'm not joking.
3: Gameplay elements. Realistic world look as in the preview? No, changed to cartoony. Prey and predators spread around the world in a realistic ecosystem? No, each species confined to a nest.
4: Tribal phase completely changed from an interesting experiment in procedural emergent responses into the shoddiest RTS I've played.
5: Civilisation stage - can create more than 3 buildings? Build roads?
6: Space stage - you have to earn the interstellar drive? Rubbish, you get it from the beginning before you place your first colony. First contact to establish a language? Nope, just generic species #435634 saying hi, do stuff for me!
You see where I'm going with this.
Basically, the Spore I was advertised would have been well worth buying and I'd have had no hesitation in buying. The Spore I got is not the kind of game you pay 25 pre-order (or more now) for, it's the kind of thing you find in the bargain bucket for a fiver. To add insult to injury, it installs an unremovable back-door that hackers can use to get in.
Nice move, EA, nice move. Guess how many people will be checking out independant reviews VERY carefully before ever buying a game from you again.
 Great fun in the early stages but then starts to drag October 14, 2008
R. Boden (Coventry, UK)
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
Firstly, I'm not going to mention all the DRM/privacy stuff which other reviewers have been whining about. DRM is starting to become a fact of life and I live with it. It's pointless trying to fight it. Now, the hype surrounding "Spore" has been going on for years since it was first mooted and I'm really disappointed to say that it really doesn't live up to it. I absolutely love these simulation-type games (I've been hooked on them since "SimCity" - the original version back in the 1990s!). I'm also a biologist by trade, so I liked that aspect too. In the first stage of the game, you're a single-celled microorganism bobbing about in a "tidal pool" trying to eat and avoid being eaten. This stage was great fun and I felt that the controls gave a really true-to-life feel as though one was actually looking down a microscope (i.e. there is a delay in movements you make and the current sweeps you along). I wish this stage had been longer and more open-ended though, I really do. In the second stage, your bug has evolved into an animal living on an island and has various other members of the same species living with it. In this stage you get to go around befriending or killing the other inhabitants before mating with another of your own species and using the points gained from your befriending/killing-spree to gain new body parts, which come with new attributes. To make things more fun, "rogue" creatures (slightly larger than normal animals which you can befriend or kill if you're really lucky) and "epic" creatures (huuuuge animals which you just don't stand a chance against) roam the landscape to liven up your journey. This stage is really beautiful with lovely landscapes and great animations, but not really very much to do, apart from kill/eat/befriend. It got very "samey" after a while and I really longed for something more like "Creatures 2" where one had objects one could interact with like toys and tools. After this comes a tribal stage where your animals start to become more civilised and work as a team...and this is, alas, as far as I've managed to get because the game here gets much more complex and, I'm affraid to say, much more boring.
It's such a shame "Spore" didn't live up to my expectations, but, that said, the first two stages are really good fun and there's a lot of eye-candy. I can't imagine much scope for any expansion packs though either.
Say no to DRM!!! October 14, 2008
L. R. Smith (Colchester, UK)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
Wanted to get this game, but then read about the insane DRM on it. If I'm paying this much for a game, I want to own it, not feel that I'm renting it and have to go begging to EA's customer service if I run out of activations (which I would, as I'd have it installed on 2 machines and refromat regularly.
The main reason for this sort of DRM is NOT to stop piracy, but to kill the second hand market for their games.
Shame on you EA....
 Simply a masterpiece October 13, 2008
C. Garth (Sheffield, England)
1 out of 4 found this review helpful
EA made a big mistake releasing Spore with the harsh DRM, which resulted in it being the most pirated game in history. Even though I have had no problems with it, evidently many people have. With this aside I am proud to say Spore is the best game I've played since the first halo, 7 years ago. This game deserves a second chance, and is well worth the cheap price you can get from amazon! In my opinion the possibilities for this game are endless, as you create your game and play it however you want. BUY THIS GAME!!
DRM HAS SCREWED UP MY COMPUTER October 13, 2008
Joe
4 out of 6 found this review helpful
I'm writing this from my friend's laptop because I don't have my own PC anymore. I've read alot of reviews and found I had similar "not authorized" problems. I'm having to pay for a clean install of windows now. I'm actually having to pay for this out of my own pocket. This was one expense I could have really done without.
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