Spore

So, I promised a non-WoW post. I did not promise a non-geek post. It's genetic, can't help it, sorry!

So, Spore has been out for a couple of weeks now. Over a decade in the making, the hype machines were working overtime for months before release, and the web is still being flooded with both rave reviews and screaming rants.

My take?

I have mixed feelings about Spore. On the one hand, it is a fun game. Few of Will Wright's games aren't. The graphics are gorgeous, particularly in the Cell and Space stages. I love the sheer potential of the game...you have so many choices, with so many outcomes. The creature, vehicle, and building creators are spectacularly flexible, allowing for the design of some really beautifully creative game content. You get attached to your little critters, too, as they grow and evolve. Every achievement and progression gives a little thrill of pride that just isn't the same in games where all the content is designed for you. That's your baby that just terraformed that plant, your baby who you've nurtured through generations from a little tiny cell.

On the other hand...

For a game 12 years in the making, Spore seems a bit...lacking. it really is a fun game, but it gets repetitive quicker than it should. In each stage, you pretty much have two options...be nice (herbivore, social, so on and so forth) or be nasty (carnivore, attack, yadda yadda). Whichever way you go, you basically end up doing the exact. same. thing. over and over til you finish the stage. In 12 years, it would've been nice for them to provide multiple ways of, say, befriending another species (maybe helping them expand their village?), or of wiping them out (cut off their food supply instead of just throwing spears at them).

Space stage expands one's options somewhat, but it still gets pretty repetitive. You end up doing the same half dozen missions, just in different locations and for different civilizations. You can skip the mission route, of course, and play the trader or warmonger role, but those routes get fairly repetitive as well.

Is Spore fun? Yes indeedy, though for me it's going to end up being one of those games I start up for an hour or towo every now and then, not something I play nonstop. Is it as fun as it should be? I don't think so. Knowing EA, of course, expansion packs are likely to be released in the future, suckering gamers into coughing up extra cash for content we should have gotten the first time around. EA likes its expansion packs.

Speaking of EA...

One of the most controversial aspects of Spore has nothing to do with the gameplay, but rather with the anti-piracy measures EA has taken with the game. The DRM (Digital Rights Management) system EA has implemented with the game has been hailed as draconian, ridiculous, and overly restrictive by much of the gaming community. In a nutshell, when Spore is installed it validates itself via an internet connection with EA's authentication servers, then reconnects to those same servers every few days to assure that "yes, this really is a legit copy of Spore, let the user play it". EA also limits the number of installations with the same copy of Spore to three. For anyone who replaces their computers on a fairly regular basis, owns multiple computers, or simply does a couple of reformat/reinstalls for whatever reason, this means it may not be long 'til you've used up all your installations and are forced to either beg EA for futher activations (good luck with that one) or buy another copy of the game if you wish to reinstall it.

Ironically, EA's anti-piracy efforts have backfired, hugely. Not only is Spore being pirated regardless of the DRM (it didn't take long for someone to figure a way around the DRM, obviously), but many people who would have willingly bought a legitimite copy of the game with normal security (CD key activation, disc required, so on and so forth) have chosen to pirate copies instead to avoid the hassle of EA's restrictive activation policies. As multiple people have already noted, Spore has actually opened up the world of software piracy to hordes of people who had previously kept their game acquisition legal.

Not only is Spore being rampantly pirated, but it's being bashed all over the place because of the DRM issue. On Amazon, Spore has a pathetic 1 1/2 star rating with just under 3,000 user reviews. The vast majority of the people posting poor reviews cite the DRM as their reason for giving the game such a low rating. From blogs to forums to gaming news, criticism of the DRM is rampant, with few people standing up to defend EA.

It's not a bad game. could've been better, but it's not bad. What it is, though, is poorly managed. Maybe EA will finally learn their lesson here, but I'm not holding my breath.


Wii Fit Progress:
Current Weight: 145.4
Goal Weight: 125
Weight Gained: 0.3 lb (the munchies got me last night...have to do better there)