| Spore | 
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| From: Electronic Arts
Category: Video Games
List Price: $49.99
Buy New: $38.00
You Save: $11.99 (24%)
New (19) Used (10) from $32.06
Avg. Customer Rating:  3158 reviews
Sales Rank: 103
Format: Dvd-rom
Platforms: Windows Xp, Macintosh, Windows Vista
ESRB: Everyone 10+
Media: DVD-ROM
Edition: Standard
Autographed: No
Memorabilia: No
Batteries Included: No
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 0.1 x 0.1 x 0
MPN: 15352
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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| Features:
| • | Epic journey from the origin and evolution of life through the development of civilization and technology and outer space exploration | | • | Play any way you choose in the five evolutionary phases of Spore: Cell, Creature, Tribe, Civilization, and Space | | • | Grow, evolve, interact with and battle other cultures, and conquer the planet | | • | Visit literally millions of planets full of other player's creations | | • | Single-player game provides unlimited worlds to explore and play |
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
The creators of The Sims present the next big bang - SPORE. Create your unique creature and guide it on an epic journey through a universe of your own creations. Play any way you choose in the five evolutionary phases of Spore: Cell, Creature, Tribe, Civilization, and Space. How you play and what you do with your universe is entirely up to you. Spore gives you a variety of powerful yet easy-to-use creation tools so you can create every aspect of your universe: creatures, vehicles, buildings, and even starships.
PC Minimum - Windows XP/Vista, 6 GB Hard Drive Space, 2.0 GHz P4 processor or equivalent, 768 MB RAM, 128 MB Video Card, with support for Pixel Shader 2.0 Mac Minimum - Mac OS X 10.5.3 Leopard or higher, 4.7GB Hard Drive Space, Intel Core Duo Processor, 1024 MB RAM; ATI X1600 or NVidia 7300 GT with 128 MB of Video RAM, or Intel Integrated GMA X3100
Amazon.com
Create universal wonder in Spore, an exciting new simulation game that lets you develop your own personal universe. Work your way through five evolutionary phases, including Cell, Creature, Tribe, Civilization and Space, that offer unique challenges, thrills and goals. For example, you can start in Cell and nurture one species from a simple aquatic organism all the way until it becomes a sentient life form. Or you can jump right in and begin building tribes and civilizations on multiple planets. What you do with your universe is totally up to you.
The powerful creation tools of Spore are easy to use, allowing you to effortlessly design every aspect of your universe. Creatures, vehicles, building and even starships are all within your grasp. While Spore is a single-player game, your creations and other players' creations are automatically shared between your galaxy and theirs, offering a nearly limitless number of worlds to visit and enjoy. You can also go online to view the incredible things other players have made and can even pull those items into your universe. Spore gives you the chance to make worlds and beings that evolve, grow and delight you every step of the way. SPORE CREATURE CREATORFinally all that hard work creating the perfect being can be put to good use. Import creatures that you created with the Spore Creature Creator and watch them live, breath and thrive in the full version of Spore. TAKE YOUR SPORE ONLINEWhile Spore is a single player game, your creations and other players' creations are automatically shared between your galaxy and theirs, providing a limitless number of worlds to explore and play within. Internet Connection Required. Minimum System RequirementsThis game will not run on PowerPC (G3/G4/G5) based Mac systems (PowerMac) - PC Minimum - Windows XP/Vista
- 6 GB Hard Drive Space
- 2.0 GHz P4 processor or equivalent
- 768 MB RAM
- 128 MB Video Card with support for Pixel Shader 2.0
- Mac Minimum - Mac OS X 10.5.3 Leopard or higher
- 4.7GB Hard Drive Space
- Intel Core Duo Processor
- 1024 MB RAM
- ATI X1600 or NVidia 7300 GT with 128 MB of Video RAM, or Intel Integrated GMA X3100
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| Customer Reviews: Read 3153 more reviews...
 Dumbed down experience and draconian DRM September 7, 2008
7680 out of 8320 found this review helpful
See those older 5-star reviews from 2006 (two years before the game was released)? Well, they had a reason to be excited. Spore was supposed to be a revolutionary experience, combining multiple genres while concentrating on evolution and genetics.
Fast forward two years and here we have the finished product, ready to be installed on our hard drives.
First of all, the game incorporates a draconian DRM system that requires you to activate over the internet, and limits you to a grand total of 3 activations. If you reach that limit, then you'll have to call EA in order to add one extra activation. That's not as simple as it sounds, since when you reach that point EA will assume that you, the paying customer, are a filthy pirating thief. You will need to provide proof of purchase, reasons why the limit was reached, etc, etc (it has all happened before with another recent EA product, Mass Effect). EA, of course, is not obligated to grant you that extra activation or even provide that service. In a couple of years they might very well even shut down the general activation servers, because "it's not financially feasible" to keep them running. What you will be left with is a nice, colorful $50 coaster. And you will be required to pay for another copy/license if you want to continue playing.
This basically means that you are actually RENTING the game, instead of owning it. The game WILL stop to function in the future. That's inevitable, because even if EA keeps the activation servers going, there IS going to be a time when EA will simply cease to exist because of financial issues or federal laws (like most businesses eventually do).
Second, the game was dumbed down to oblivion. Evolution doesn't even matter anymore. For example, you can add as many legs to a creature as you want, but the multi-legged creature won't be any faster than a single-legged one with higher leg stats. This gameplay element makes "creating" your creatures entirely pointless (cosmetic only, because everything is based on stats), and brings you about the same amount of excitement as dressing up a plastic doll.
No Way, No How, No DRM September 7, 2008
2768 out of 3173 found this review helpful
I just got through a massive headache dealing with DRM for Adobe Photoshop CS3. I've dealt with massive headaches from DRM from Civ3 gold. All of this is on a very high end vista PC. Thanks, but no thanks. I was excited about the concept of this game for many months. That is until I found out about the DRM it uses. I will not buy software with DRM ever again, particularly if they limit the installs to something ridiculous like 3.
Update (9/12/08): I just learned that EA limits purchasers to one account per household even though the manual states that multiple accounts may be used per installation. What does that mean? Well, say you have 4 people in your house that want to play spore on 4 different accounts. No problem, according to EA games, just pony up $200 for 4 licenses.
A shame September 7, 2008
1903 out of 2255 found this review helpful
Currently I rate this game bad been following and think the game itself looks like it has great potential. Here is why I rate so low.
Cons
1. Ability to play the only way for me to access the Demos or whatever you want to call them is to lower my security settings on my system. Here is my issue with this I did that for Mass Effect giving the benefit of the doubt after it crashed my computer and left files I couldn't remove it was easier to wipe my system and lose everything. To me that seems like Malware.
2. 3 Activation limit I upgrade computers and have several of them at my house I just cut down to 4 and am looking to buy another by this My game will be useles before long. I play baldurs gate the original and fallout still these are some of my favorites. Ive reloaded numerous times I fail to see how this helps fight piracy also. If I own a copy of a game Im allowed a backup copy and I belive Im also allowed to get that game as a rom even and play on an emulator. How does 3 activations limit pirating if I pirated an ran out of three activations Id just pirate another This is more of a resell to paying customers package.
3. EA's buisness practices with there security. They dont label it on there packaging nor put a disclaimer that this Sofware will harm your system and bypass your admin rights to your computer. Also Ive heard not sure but gamers tried a petition to ask EA not to put this DRM on game those people were temporarily banned from the forums and those petitions were deleted not a very customer friendly concept.
Pros
1. The concept of the game I love these types of games and this is the most indept game Ive seen. I think if the game works right it would provide hours of play
2. The graphics are outstanding
3. One DRM feature was taken away which is the ten day actiavtion by internet which is great being military we dont see internet in all our locations so this is a nice step in the right direction to not alienate those that are away from the comfort of home.
After all is said and done I currently give the game one star for its inability to be played if EA takes a more customer friendly approach and I have no fears of crashing my system then I will boost my rating to reflect improvements but fo now it stays a 1
Returning the game... September 8, 2008
1097 out of 1222 found this review helpful
I played with the creature creator a bit and had a good time. I long ago pre-ordered Spore and have not had time to look further into the game as it approaches release. When I finally did, a few days ago, I discovered that they are implementing the absurd SecuROM DRM.
I have no interest in paying full price for a game that I will be severely restricted from being able to play at a later point. Presuming installation is flawless, the current restriction to "three installs" is something any user will exceed long before their interest in the game does.
In my situation, I would be installing it on my desktop and my laptop. I would only ever be playing one of these systems at a time so there would be no violation of the ridiculous EULA most products have. Only one instance would ever be operated simultaneously and only by me, the owner (well, renter as EA and SecuROM would have it). This would mean that as soon as I ever had to reinstall an OS on my desktop or laptop, I'd be screwed out of the game unless I wanted to buy it again for full price (and what happens if you want to enjoy the game a few years down the road and re-install it)?
Think about that for a minute. Even if you never upgrade your hardware or buy a new computer or use a different computer -- how often (presuming you're using Windows of course) do you reinstall your operating system? And each time, you have to reinstall the game. If you're an XP user, you'll probably install the game. Then you'll upgrade to Vista. That'll be another install. Two down; one to go. Then you may need to re-install vista from scratch for any number of miserable reasons. And that will be your third strike. You better hope that you never *ever* need to change or adjust that system for any reason if you like Spore.
Imagine applying this to other products. What if you could only watch purchased DVDs on one specific DVD player and once you've played it on that system, you could never play them on another one. No lending them to your friends. No buying a new player. No watching it on your payer in different rooms. No selling your used DVDs. And if your player dies and you buy a new one, you'll have to re-purchase the movie. Wouldn't that be silly? Perfectly good content that you have physically sitting in your hand that you paid handily for and have every right to own and use... only... you don't own it and can't use it.
I only wish I had known this sooner. It is already in the process of being shipped so I can't cancel the order. Once it arrives, you better believe I'm going to hand it right back to the UPS driver and tell him I refuse to accept delivery.
This is truly unfortunate. I'm a fan of Will Wright, even if some of his more recent games have not been geared toward the traditional simulation or Sim City fan and have been aimed more at the "decorate a bedroom and play house" crowd. I'd love to give Wright my support. But EA is making that impossible with this ridiculous scheme. I'm not a thief. Don't treat me like one.
Won't buy with DRM September 7, 2008
955 out of 1166 found this review helpful
Since this game has DRM I will not buy. It is that simple.
I came here ready to click on "buy with one click" and have it here tomorrow with next-day (cheap) prime shipping.
The review showing it has DRM was extremely helpful in me determining NOT TO BUY.
It is not necessary to actually own the game to make this determination and I am glad someone posted it has DRM.
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