Spore

by Electronic Arts

• 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

Product Details

• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B000FKBCX4
• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 5.5 x 0.5 inches ; 6.4 ounces
• Media: DVD-ROM
• Release Date: September 7, 2008
• Average Customer Review: 1.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3,295 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,088 in Video Games (See Top 100 in Video Games)
  • #7 in Video Games > PC Games > Games > Simulation > Life
  • #9 in Video Games > Mac Games > Games

Product Description

Platform: PC/Mac | Edition: Standard

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 CREATOR

Finally 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 ONLINE

While 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 Requirements

This game will not run on PowerPC (G3/G4/G5) based Mac systems (PowerMac)

• PC Minimum - Windows XP/Vista
• 2.0 GHz P4 processor or equivalent
  
• 512 MB RAM/768 MB RAM
• 128 MB Video Card with support for Pixel Shader 2.0
• The latest version of DirectX 9.0c
• Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 1
• At least 4 GB of hard drive space, with at least 1 GB additional space for creations


• Mac Minimum - Mac OS X 10.5.3 Leopard or higher
• Intel Core Duo Processor
  
• 1024 MB RAM
• ATI X1600 or NVIDIA 7300 GT with 128 MB of Video RAM, or Intel Integrated GMA X3100
• At least 4 GB of hard drive space, with at least 1 GB additional space for creations
• This game will not run on PowerPC (G3/G4/G5) based Mac systems (PowerMac), or the GMA 950 class of integrated video cards

• For computers using built-in graphics chipsets under Windows, the game requires at least:
• Intel Integrated Chipset, 945GM or above
• 2.6 GHz Pentium D CPU, or 1.8 GHz Core 2 Duo, or equivalent
• 768 MB RAM
  
  
  
  

Product Description

From the creators of The Sims comes Spore, where you evolve a single-celled organism into a galactic god whose personality and abilities are completely up to you. Then interact with other players' creatures-including ones made by celebrities! EA Games. PC/MAC, NDS.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8,554 of 9,343 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars Dumbed down experience and draconian DRM September 7, 2008

By Erich Maria Remarque VINE™ VOICE

Platform for Display:PC/Mac|Edition:Standard

Fun: 1.0 out of 5 stars   

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. Read more ›

1,036 of 1,145 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars I don't understand magazine reviews giving this game high marks September 9, 2008

By Jakub Reczek

Platform for Display:PC/Mac|Edition:Standard

Fun: 1.0 out of 5 stars   

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. Read more ›

456 of 501 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars Extremely disappointing and shallow. September 12, 2008

By C. Fredericks

Platform for Display:PC/Mac|Edition:Standard

Fun: 1.0 out of 5 stars   

I've been a fan of Will Wright for many years and when I first started hearing about Spore years ago I was very excited.
I watched the videos and they looked superb. I downloaded the creature creator and it too was excellent!

Finally the day came when Spore was released and I went to my friend's house to play it. I was super excited!
He said it was so lame that I could have it. I didn't listen to him and was overjoyed to have been given his copy! I rushed home and installed it.

EPIC DISAPPOINTMENT.
I played through the whole thing hoping in vain that it would get better but feeling the bitter sting of FAIL with every passing moment.

The Cell phase- A pretty and cute rehash of the PSP game "Flow".
Lasted all of 20 minutes with the only consequence being choosing a mouth and a diet.

The Creature phase- The best of all the levels, but that's not saying much.You painstakingly created a creature by grinding through a bland "world", and performing the same repetitive actions over and over again; killing or charming creatures that all hang around sullenly by identical nests. By the time you "level up" your creature and are ready to progress to Tribal phase, you get a nasty surprise.

Tribal phase- All the stats you grinded for in the Creature phase are now useless and you now get to play an insultingly simplistic, kiddie version of Age of Empires or other similar RTS games.
Again you must repetitively charm or attack other creatures but this time you are viewing your painstakingly designed creature as a speck from a bird's eye view. You get to dress your creature in clothes now (only a few choices) and Tribal phase is over faster than you can say "WTF?..."

Civilized phase- Now you have a crappy template city and you design your buildings, ships and such with the sweet editor only to once again view them as specs. Now you're playing Starcraft but the shiny, shallow kids version. Why did I design all this cool stuff again? I can't even see it and I'm bogged down by a boring, linear clone of an old game.

Space phase- You are now trapped in your speck-sized spaceship for the rest of the game and can only get out as a clunky "hologram" that cannot interact with anything (but can be killed by other creatures for some reason.) You have ONE ship and spend your time jumping from star to star looking at planet after bland planet and running errands for aliens who appear as icons similar to games released in the early 90's.
So that's it. You can visit and terraform planets (which more or less all look the same) and look at other colonies, trapped in your spaceship and constantly under attack from "pirates" of whom you must destroy using the buggy space laser system. You can create another dull planet if you like to contain another template "city" but that's it.
That's the end.

The whole game is a collection of 5 unoriginal, regurgitated, simplistic and insultingly easy minigames with a nice custom content editor that serves no purpose whatsoever in the game itself.
All the customizable content is 100% cosmetic. For looks only and nothing more.

My extreme disappointment can barely be verbalized. The videos of the game still look superb and EA doubtlessly reserved these features for the real cash cow - expansion packs.

Hey, Will. Make a Sims 2 style Spore with lots of complexity, voluntary combat, interaction,variation and surprises and you may have something.
Right now all you have is a lousy collection of minigames and a whole lot of disappointed fans.

Glad I didn't buy it and hope my review saves others from the total let down that is Spore. Read more ›