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| From: Electronic Arts
List Price: $49.99
Buy New: $34.97
You Save: $15.02 (30%)
New (41) Used (16) from $28.99
Rating:  3142 reviews
Sales Rank: 98
Format: Dvd-rom
Platforms: Windows Xp, Windows Vista, Macintosh
Genre: artificial_life_simulation_games
ESRB: Everyone 10+
Media: DVD-ROM
Edition: Standard
Autographed: No
Memorabilia: No
Batteries Included: No
Operating System: Windows 2000
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 0.1 x 0.1 x 0
MPN: 19080
Model: 15352
UPC: 014633153521
EAN: 0014633153521
ASIN: B000FKBCX4
Release Date: September 7, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 6-10 of 3142
 $49.99 to much for game rental September 7, 2008
Philip L. Nemeth (The PHX)
894 out of 1089 found this review helpful
$49.99 + DRM is too much to pay when the game is only a rental after the DRM. $29.99 would be an acceptable price.
drm makes me a sad panda September 7, 2008
mark daly (baltimore, md)
846 out of 1087 found this review helpful
probably one of the most innovative and well-executed games released in the last 20 years, but the ridiculous DRM means that you are either stuck off-line and lose out on the revolutionary MSO (massively single-player online) experience, or you rent 3 uses for $50 USD.
will wright is an undeniable genius and its sad that the evil empire known as EA is prevent his incredible achievement from having higher market penetration.
Maxis fails to deliver September 7, 2008
Shaun Friedle (England)
702 out of 790 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.
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 which has been mentioned in all the other reviews.
I don't understand magazine reviews giving this game high marks September 9, 2008
Jakub Reczek
628 out of 680 found this review helpful
This game has some revolutionary concepts, such as automatically shared user content and amazing design tools (that were already introducted and perfected, and some would say superior by Galactic Civilizations 2 years ago).
However, there is no 'game' here. As some people put, the 'game' amounts to over simplified tasks that are monotonous and repetitive. The creature stage isn't as fun as you would imagine, as not all the parts are available, and even if they were, you are encouraged to use the 'highest stat' part effectively limiting you to maybe 6-10 parts to place onto your creature.
Why would you use a cool looking mouth with a social rating of '1' if that means that you can't befriend the other tribes and hence progress in the game?? Basically, many of the parts become useless, no matter how good they look. Furthermore, other creature nests (only one nest per species) are arranged with weak creatures immediately around you, and progressively higher level creatures at increasing distances. How predictable. Basically, its designed so that you only explore or run around your immediate nest. I always imagined finding random creatures walking around, hunting, eating, grazing, finding mates, etc. Nope. All creatures basically hang around IN or NEXT TO their nest. How lame. So basically there is no mixing of the creatures. Creatures dont wander around the world as you would think. They are all found in clumps and really only have limited interactions with each other (limited since they only interact [partially] with surrounding nests, as they dont wander around the world)
The civilization stage is HORRIBLE. Basically it amounts to the most simplified and boring RTS I have ever played. Quickly grab a few resources, and then keep clicking on 'create vehicle' and send it to the enemy city. Repeat the last 2 steps endlessly and you have the game. No strategy, no thinking, no variety. You might as well have a script do this for you.
Then there's the DRM. Let me just clarify what people are saying by adding, it not only counts installations, but changes to your hardware ! Upgrade a system component (memory, CPU, vid card) and you are out an installation. Not that it matters because its really a pretty bad game (except for the creation tools) Nice job. Basically I just paid $50 for a coaster.
Fun but no multi-login! September 8, 2008
... (United States)
604 out of 672 found this review helpful
With 1 computer we were planning on playing Spore with our seperate logons the same way we play other games. But that's a big no go! EA has seen fit to not allow multiple logons ON THE SAME COMPUTER!! So we have to settle for limiting ourselves with sharing the universe. This would be OK if it were just the 2 of us but I'd like to let my son play too. But with 3 of us we're limited to 2 planets per and will end up unlocking things that the other 2 haven't earned yet etc...
This user limitation is just dumb. Does EA expect families to have 1 computer per family member?!? I'd love that but can't afford it.
I will be attempting to return the game. Maybe later on we can buy it again when EA fixes this issue.
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