Sure, you CAN play Final Fantasy for 150 hours, but normally you just tell people it takes 80.

Eh, Spore I wouldn't really give an average because it all depends on how spazzy you want to be when it comes to gaining points and sporebucks.

I had some free time to read reviews for this game. Stories about the DRM stuff of course, how people accidentally used up their installs, anyone who regularly reinstalls their OS is screwed, etc. Then, once you use up your installs, you call a line where you have to pay per minute, and request another install, which they aren't required to grant. Plus, you're forced to install difficult to remove spyware in order to play.

On top of all that, people are saying its a dull and pointless game with a bad control scheme and bad gameplay. Many described it as 5 bad flash games squashed in to one, and others pointed out that the 2005 demo had features that the game does not, and suggest that it is likely the features will be showing up in expansion packs later.

I dunno guys, I'm saving my money, I suggest you do the same.

I'm still having fun with it.

Me too.

After beating the crap out of my neighbor's kid the other day, I must say, I "beat" hard mode in 6 hours, and I'm still enjoying the game.

Yay hard core gamers!

Yeah, I think my next goal is to take a break from Space mode and do the rest of the game on Hard now, and try to nab some of the other achievements.

Good luck getting your money up where it needs to be. It's a pain on hard mode. And every other minute (literally) your planets are being attacked.

What jutsu did you use?

... the one that's going to throw a blunt object at your head, lady!

Picking on me!

... but I did beat the :censor: out of him with the game box (it's solid plastic with sharp edges) once I got it in my hands... little dirty thief...

I've played the game.

It's a very fun game. I think the people dismissing it as "flash minigames" are being dismissive. Granted, Spore won't be the best of the best in any of its fields. But I think the whole combination is a very interesting experience.

The DRM issues doesn't bother me. I hear a lot of protests but to be honest, I've got things like Bioshock, The Orange Box, and Spore and haven't had any problems. I don't really think a lot of people have that many compatibility issues with the DRM at all. (The term Rootkit is a misnomer for this--this is not like the Sony fiasco of the past). I don't see how it's behavior is any different from requiring the original CD in the drive. I think a lot of those people posting to Amazon.com are just being zealous--for instance, anybody defending DRM in the comments is modded down--it's more like a vigilante mob, and my basic object is that the Amazon reviews are being spammed with a lot of messages saying "DRM is evil", without a full critique of the game. The best message is to not buy the game--if enough people are concerned it will have an economic impact--and if people aren't concerned, then I guess the objecters are few after all. If people torrent it, it will just encourage game developers to keep adding DRM or give up PC gaming altogether. I get where people are coming from, and I understand the concern--I don't buy DRMed digital copies of music because I've been burned before--but I go legit routes for those too.

This world reminds me of a "god game" if God was Doctor Seuss. That's the best way to describe it.I think the fun thing is the creation and seeing your creations in action. I love to just try to zoom into the planets and see all the life forms. I think the replay value will be key--how many people will want to try again and do something different. Space is pretty much infinite--it's more like Diablo than a StarFlight/StarControl game, since there's only a sketch of an overall plot rather than a detailed one like the latter. (I find manuvering the ship to be frustrating in combat though).

And people have to remember that this procedural animation and customization is being done on an unprecedented level. I'll bet that this will be a major stepping stone, so you'll probably have more serious and detailed games take from this.

But it does the opposite of what they want. It does nothing at all to keep people from cracking the game and making it available for download, and it makes for a worse experience for legit customers. If anything, it discourages honesty, and thats what disappoints me about the whole system.

Also worth noting that I'm saying this as someone who has never used illegally downloaded software.

the DRM thing would bug me, esepcially since I own 4 computers that I often switch between.

Its always frustrating when the hackers have an easier time getting thier game to work, than a legit owner does.

What's sad is that many honest people will buy a copy, then download the cracked version because it makes their life easier. They paid for it, and now they can use it, instead of being bound by idiotic DRM.

DRM that phones home is ridiculous, unless they patch that part out of it the day they stop supporting the authentication servers. If I want to play Spore ten years from now, I shouldn't have to worry about whether or not it can find a server to tell it that I'm legit.

I don't care about any of this DRM nonsense, but really, the game is full of such random, annoying design choices.

1st- Creature stage really isn't all it was cut out to be. :/
2nd- Space stage. It's great, I -would- be having fun with it. However, EVERY SINGLE TIME I enter enemy territory to attack them, some pirate randomly shows up on the other side of the damn universe to raid my city. Every time. Who the hell scripted that?
3rd- Fighting others in space stage. If they aren't pirates, they run. You have ~15 seconds to chase and shoot them down (mind that your missiles are SLOWER THAN THEIR SHIPS). Once that 15 seconds are up, the ship heals to full health. What the ? How can I turn this crap off?

Leave 1 ship at your city, they raid whenever it's left unattended.

For the cheater in you though, hit CTRL+SHIFT+C.

universeSimulatorPirateRaidPlunderFrequency # Rate that pirates will steal spice from your systems
universeSimulatorPirateRaidAllyFrequency # Rate that pirtates will raid ally your systems
universeSimulatorPirateRaidFrequency # Rate that the pirates will raid your systems.

So far I've played through the game four times, once on Hard to unlock the Accomplishment. Aside from the random crashes, the game is one of my favorites. It takes about 30 minutes on Cell stage, 2-3 hours on Creature depending on how many parts you want to get, 1-2 hours on Tribal, 1 hour or less on Civilization, and then Space can take anywhere from 3 to 8 hours to get to "super secret thing which I won't tell you about."

Space is a grind fest. Just don't build that many colonies early on. Once you get Uber turret, you can ignore pirates and hostiles on any planet except your Home planet. You still have to drop what you're doing to save a planet's ecosystem every now and then.

I've uploaded a few of my creatures to YouTube, for those interested. http://www.youtube.com/user/bddp

The game falls very short of expectation. Here, where I am, in Canada the game costs 90.00$ and I am positive 50.00 of that is the very sleek and pretty case the game comes in.

The actual creature sandbox is very short and hard to get a good selection of "dna" upgrades before the stage progresses.

The game is fun, once, twice, by the third time I am spending more time screaming at bugs and glitches causing me to restart (because the save game option is a horrible design) from 3 stages back, instead of loading the game at the stage I am at, because most games have an autosave when you advance in them.

The mouse interface is backwards to any other game I play, which annoys me. The ability to change options is very limited and certainly not what I would expect in a 90.00 game. Heck, I have 15.00 games with more control over the interface than Spore has.

Aside from that, making creatures is nifty. The rest... I can make buildings and spaceships in much cheaper games with better design capabilities.

I was not aware you could leave ships at your cities.

Also, screw the Grox, man. I wanna see the center of the galaxy! Move aside!

Grox.