Spore...a dissapointment?

I bought it yesterday and got bored ALMOST INSTANTLY. The game is extremely childish and has no gameplay mechanics as i have seen. Once arrived at the creature stage. I stopped playing the game. The landscape is so empty and interaction is quite limited... u play music like once or twice to make alliance or something?

Boring, childing. Wayyyy to overhyped, not worth 50$ or my time.


if you guys have any suggestions that would somewhat make my hopes for this game magically go up, feel free to.


But seriously, i thought it was worth much more than just "this".

 

I too was extremely disappointed. I played all the way into the space age and the game immediately turned form completely simple to extremely tedious. I couldn't complete one mission without one of my colonies or allies needing rescue from an attack or eco-disaster. In most space exploration games problems like this can be solved by building your own fleet to protect your planets while you go off, but alas! You seem to be the only ship in your empire!

I had read reviews about the game after its release so I decided to download it for free before I forked over the fifty bucks. I have no been so happy to have pirated media in my life.

I have to ask anyone who hated this game to go to amazon and write a one star review about why. I personally cited the poor/sketchy DRM software that only allows three installs ever, EA's horrible customer service, and the tiny fact that the game sucked.

And uh.. I'll change my sig when I stop being so lazy.

 

I am actually liking it. It seems quite shallow and the customizations to your creature really don't make much of a difference, but you can play it any way you want and there are small things in there at are neat.

I'm still trying to befriend an epic creature.

The way the creatures act and move is quite neat as well. The ability to get new creatures from the sporeapedia is cool.

I've made about 10 species. It is getting boring, but there are still new things I find in the game.

 

I thought the Gamespot review was a decent summary, the game is essentially a collection of simple mini-games meshed together into one package.

 

Definitely not worth $50. Sigh...

 

I thought it would be a more lively and interactive environment.. This is like childs play!

 

It's an interactive art project; if you approach it as such you won't be disappointed. But yeah, for the rest; it seems very much to cater to kids and feels disjointed.

 

Were any of you disappointed with the space age? It was ridiculously difficult and slow.

 

Wow, 92% of the 2,128 reviews on Amazon are 1-star. Never seen that before, surprising too because it was suppose to be so good. I thought I heard they've been working 10 years on it, that's disappointing for all those who bought it. Join the overwhelming majority at Amazon and say what you think about the game, maybe save someone else some money.
http://www.amazon.com/Spore-Mac/dp/B000FKBCX4/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=videogames&qid=1221093932&sr=8-1

 

Amazon's currently the site where all the people who are annoyed (putting it mildly) by the 3 activations + securom + online required DRM put into Spore are going to rate the game down

Wait, I forgot to mention that your computer's login info (maybe other stuff? who knows :/) is embedded in any creature you associated/upload to your spore.com account.

 

I stopped playing after I reached Civ stage. Got tired of the crappy camera controls, AI, pathfinding, and disappointing game mehanics. Only thing I do now is try to recreate the stuff from Exosquad with the vehicle creator. Easier to work with than Maya or 3D Studio Max, hehe

 

all i can honestly say is. I want my money back. I am not a satisfied customer.

 

I wonder if EA is actually paying attention to the astounding number of "1's" on amazon. It would be nice to think they are, but I have to doubt it. It is truly amazing how poorly reveived the game has become though.

 

this game never appealed to me during development. i didn't get what they were going for. and now it still makes no sense. at least i feel like im not crazy for having my original opinion anymore.

 

Heh, those amazon reviews are a waste of time to go off of. I mean yes, the DRM is bad...but does it ruin the game for me, no? Why, because am I really going to reinstall the game 3 times? As you all have said...it's shallow, and doesn't have much depth, so frankly I don't care if I only have 3 installs. Yes, its a crying shame, but for christ sake...those Amazon reviews are a perfect example of bad PR on the internet...everyone is just willing to go with what everyone else is saying.

That being said, down with DRM!

 

Well you gotta look at it from a different perspective. I've been gaming for over 10 years now. I reinstall some of my old games on and off and I've already gone through 5 different computers with way more OS reformats. You won't be able to do that easily with these kinds of DRMs. They don't even have a guarantee that they'll continue supporting their games that long. I'd be screwed if they rejected my request for more activations and I'd be better off having gotten a pirated copy even if I lost the online aspects of this game.

 

Yes....but heh, and maybe this only applies to me. But usually when I beat a game, I never ever go back to playing it hahaha... That's why counterstrike is the only game I can play for years non-stop...

 

Yep, I predicted this one. Spore look's like one hell of a boring game to me, didn't take more than ten minutes of my time to look at screenshots, trailers, and game features before I decided that I would never even buy the game.

 

For some people, 3 installs is not an unreasonable number to surpass. Especially if a game is good like diablo or starcraft there's a good chance one disk will be install across multiple computers over the years (but spore won't have this problem ). Heck, on my older notebook I had two games that I had to reinstall to fix graphics issues, not to mention when I reinstalled my OS. If those games had DRM I wouldn't have oblivion on my computer now (unless I bought it again). And I disagree about the reviews being bad PR. EA is obviously dense enough to think that it can stop piracy by making things more difficult for regular consumers. The pirated version of this game was still released before the official North America release despite anti-piracy measures. 1-star reviews are the perfect way to tell EA that their current DRM (and game in general) are no good.

 

It's more than just 3 activations (as mentioned earlier in the thread); the game has other intrusive aspects, some of which invade the users' privacy. You have a point though - I'm pretty tired of people who have no idea what DRM is spouting off about it, as if Spore's the only game that has ever had it.

Spore's PR was *great* and it didn't look boring to players that like creative god games. The issues with the game (separate from the 1s at Amazon and the DRM and EA's (mis)handling of everything) were not foreseeable from the ads. The game could be fixed with some work, or mods, and it has to do with balance, very little carry over from one stage to another, and useless badges and achievements instead of useful goals.

 

Yeah, but the same thing happened with Mass Effect and the result is a bimodal distribution (lot's of 1's and lots of 5's and some scores in between with the average being a 3). For Spore, the number of 1's is overwhelming (92% at the time of my posting).

 

I know it sounds like Blasphemy, but I have never taken interest in Spore EVER. I know what the game is about in general, however, it just never triggered my interest. Proabably because the only game type i like is FPS, games like Spore just sounds too RPG/"Strategic" (RTS?) for me.

 

That's a very good point; I haven't looked at Mass Effect's ratings in a while, but I remember there being a lot more negatives initially (although a significant number of 5's as well, which must have caught up since release).

Honestly, look, if sim like games aren't your thing, why come in here and comment on that? I wouldn't expect Spore to be anything but a disappointment for FPS fans. When sim game players come in here and say "yeah it's really bad" (which they have) then you have a problem.

 

I actually started looking at spore after hearing so much about it lately (before the DRM thing), and got interested in it. Now after hearing about the 3 installs and other privacy things I decided its not worth the hassles. I frequently uninstall and reinstall games when I tire of them and then when I want to play them again later on. With diablo 2 i have installed it on more than like 4 computers and multiple times on one or two of the computers.

 

those things bring the game's rating down, really...
but spore, is NOT childish, specially, as i mentioned in a thread a couple of days ago...
its amusing to watch spore-male-genitalia running around the map.
thats funny... brings a giggle to the breakfast table for sure..
and yes, it does get boring.
i love the creature editor best thing the game has.

 

Hmm, well coming from someone who bought the creature editor when it first came out, I was really psyched for this game. But, I've gotta admit it was a bit of a letdown.

Completely ignoring the DRM stuff, the gameplay seemed disjointed between the stages, and while each stage was fun in and of themselves, they were really missing some crucial elements of flow. The space stage is the only stage with lasting sustenance, however the short-and-sweet creature stage is my favourite, because you actually get to use your character.

That being said, if you go into Spore thinking that it's more of a toy than a game, it's great fun. It's like Lego, in which you can spend a lot of time building something, but never really have anything to do with it but put it on display. And I've certainly built my share of Lego.

Worth $50? Probably not. But there are few games out there today which have created their own niche, and this sim/rts/rpg/action hybrid is certainly a good step for the industry in creating new and interesting gameplay.

 

a blog entry touching on the drm dealio

http://www.8bithacks.com/2008/09/ever-since-the.html#more

 

lol there are like 1600+ 1 star ratings on amazon! I was going to pick-it up but seeing how everyone says it sucks...I"ll get it when its like $9.99 lol

 

Has anybody been able to play through the space age? It is driving me insane with these stupid missions.

 

Space age is definitely the weakest link in Spore's evolutionary ladder. I wish they focused more on the creature and tribal stage. It would be cool to stay in a world populated by many creatures and see how the creatures interact with each other.

Then again the interaction between creatures seems pretty limited. Would have been neat if it took on some of the play mechanics of The Sims.

Even though I bought the game I hope that the low rating on Amazon hurts sales. DRM is just wrong.

 

I actually like the game, well certain parts of it anyways.

I really dig the creature/vehicle creators. I also found the first stage highly entertaining, although a bit short. It would have been great to evolve through a fish and/or amphibian stage before moving on to the creature stage. It would have added some much needed depth to the game.

I found the tribal and civilization stages to be rather ho-hum, but the space stage has me pulling my hair out.

I've only had the game since this past Sunday, so I'll give it some time.

 

I dunno if anyone else has noticed, but going through the sporepedia on the website and looking at all the creations, you notice a lot of duplications. Some users seem to be taking (or giving no) credit for others' works. I can't help but feel that they could have foreseen this and refined their system a bit more so that the original author is automatically attributed if users d/l their creation. It would help cut down on the duplicates too.

 

Wow, I thought the whole point of the game was interaction. Isn't that what they spent years working on? I really wanted to buy this game (huge RTS fan) but no way I'll be able to pull the trigger now. And yes, I think the Amazon reviews are indeed going to hurt sales...at least with people who actually care enough to look up a review.

 

Yes, Spore has been a disappointment and is definitely not worth $50. I was really anticipating much more interaction, ways to play, and paths to follow. The game seems very limited to me, almost like a tech demo. Each stage is like a shallow mini-game. This seems intentional too because EA appears to have kicked the game out the door with little regard to its long-term viability other than making wide open spots for multiple expansion packs. The DRM and casualties of it (such as multiple user accounts) are terrible decisions. The 12+ million creations and limited way of controlling what content appears in each stage is also annoying. On top of that, friendships and rivalries from previous stages are not even remotely persistent through stages, and this is a major major issue.

Having said that, I find that the most entertaining and amusing stages in the game are the Creature and Tribal stages. The Civilization stage isn't bad, but I don't like how they de-emphasized your creature and switched everything over to static machines. The creatures were highly animated and entertaining which is what made things fun. By the time you get to space age it's like the fun has been sucked out of the game. They should have focused more on the creature and tribal stages since there's so much potential.

Personally, I would absolutely be thrilled to see other developers incorporate the creature and vehicle creation aspects of Spore and apply them to other games and other situations. I would love to have a proper deep RTS game where you design every unit and every building if you want. Something like Rise of Nations, where your creatures advance in ages/time/technology, would be ideal.