- Jan 12, 2004
- 11,078
- 11
- 81
-UPDATE 09-16-08-
What's up guys. Just wanted to give everyone a heads up that I worked with Ars on some DRM investigation (I'm using that term lightly) and installed Spore a rediculous amount of times on several machines, talked with EA tech support, and reported my findings.
You might be surprised what we found out.
Putting EA's DRM to the Test
-UPDATE 09-08-08-
One of the editors over at Ars Technica saw this post and contacted me in regards to writing a full featured review of the game for their front page--crazy! It has now been published:
http://arstechnica.com/reviews/games/spore-review.ars
Let me know what you guys think. (This is my first time being published, so please have low expectations!)
Upon arriving home from work yesterday I found a little box waiting on my doorstep from EA that contained a review copy of Spore. Of course I've been very aware of the game since its initial announcement, but really have only read (perhaps) only one preview over a year ago and have had no hands-on with it before yesterday. I certainly knew of the hype though--but was not caught up in that. I had little anticipation for the game.
Once I found the time yesterday, I sat down with the game for a few hours to check out what this...thing is. The installation itself took roughly 10 minutes and was on a single DVD. During the installation it was "highly suggests" that I allow the installation of the EA Downloaded so that Spore could stay up-to-date. I don't recall what it said verbatium--but it made it seem that this was the only way patches would be available to me. Since I already had the EA Downloader installed it was a non-issue for me, but I figured this might be an area of contention for some of you and probably worth mentioning.
I launched the game and was prompted to log in to my EA Online account (or to create one). Once I logged in I was allowed access to the games menu. This log in to EAs network apparently will allow you to have on-the-fly access to other users content--as well as yours. I have not figured out exactly how much it will effects you to play Spore in Offline mode (but I was warned that playing like that would make several features unavailable--but was never informed exactly what those features might be).
Gameplay
Where do I begin? With 4 hours of game time I've had hardly enough exposure to reveal everything I'm sure, but I'll just chat about what I experienced so far. I'll try to keep it brief.
Spore consists of 5 phases of evolution that are represented by 5 different types of games that you will venture into. Once you select which planet you wish to evolve on, you're presented with the option to be a Carnivor or Herbivor:
1st Phase (Top down perspective) - Much like Flow or Pacman, you wiggle around eating food, trying to staying away from predetors and trying to evolve. You gobble and grow, mate and reproduce, throw some parts on yourself and survive some more in the primordial ooze.
2nd Phase (third-person chase cam) - Like you've probably read elsewhere, this era plays much like World of Warcraft with several defferent attacks types (like Charge or Bite) and some abilities (like charm and dance) allow you to befriend some other species. If befriended, you can use their nest as a home (find mate and heal). I never did make any friends. I tried a few times to impress them with dancing and singing, but I never made them happy enough--so I wiped out their entire tibe and took over. As you evolve in this stage, you are able to recruit more and more of your tribe to join you and attack as a pack. This was, by far, the most interesting expereince for me in this phase. Attacking another species as 4 others behind you join you is a really interesting feeling of comfort. It's pretty brutal out there and I needed all the help I could get. Some interesting notes: I spotted a unnatural shadow on the ground, looked up and it was a UFO circling around me studying me. Also, there was a gigantic T-rex running around.
3rd Phase (RTS, Multi-view) - Just a strategy game through and through with one resource to manage (food). This was a bit boring for me as it was just way too simple for my tastes and carried on way too long.
4th Phase (RTS, Multi-view) - This is also a strategy type of game, but with many more options. I hit my 4th hour once I had entered this phase and had to make dinner--so it was time to quit.
5th Phase - Unsure, did not play yet.
Graphics (My system: Q6600, 8800GT 512MB, 4GB DDR2)
Once the game was launched, it had unfortunately defaulted to 1024x768. A change to 1680x1050 required a restart of the game and made things a little prettier. Throughout my 4 hours of play time, I never experienced a single hickup, stutter or crash anywhere--it was silky smooth! But to be frank, the game doesnt exactly look amazing--just average in most areas and pretty dull in others.
I think the most impressive part for me was the first stage actually. As you swim your way through the primordial soup, below you resides a looming layer of scurring organisms. The depth-of-field effect that is used here is perfectly implimented as is reveals (subtly) different creatures or various sizes and shapes. It's subtle in the way that you're more concerned with your current area, focused on moving around and only until I noitced a humongous beaked, spiked organisms below me that could easily gobble me up did I sit back a bit and go "cool!" It creates this feared anticipation of what may come next! It might not sound that impressive in this text and probably is something you just have to see for yourself--but it's really a great effect. I hope that made sense.
Sounds and Music
The only music that has stuck out to me so far was the opening menu theme. It really reminded me of a mix between music from Mass Effect and Space Mountain (70's Scifi). It was great. The sounds I heard were top notch and pretty cute over all--in a "Sims" like fasion.
User Created Content
As one of the big bullet points for this title, I was interested to see how user created content was going to be integrated into the game.
When you mate or produce a baby in these phases, you will be brought to a creature creator tool. There are many many options and menus of various parts (depending on the era you're playing) that allow you to add and then customize, stretch, pull, push, rotate and tilt to your pleassure. One could just spend hours and hours in here if that's your thing. One tab allows you to choose a color theme and near the bottom is where you can access the Spore database of user created content. It's cool to browse and see what other people are doing.
Overall
The game is interesting overall and has definitely piqued my interest--but it hasn't captured me completely. It feels a little lifeless or without character. Perhaps it's almost too high concept to make for something with charm? To be fair, this may change as I complete the last two phases and discover more about the game. As it stands, I'm a little let down and not totally captivated by my experience so far.
I know this isnt the most comprehensive Spore post, but I wanted to give my two cents with my initial impression.
What's up guys. Just wanted to give everyone a heads up that I worked with Ars on some DRM investigation (I'm using that term lightly) and installed Spore a rediculous amount of times on several machines, talked with EA tech support, and reported my findings.
You might be surprised what we found out.
Putting EA's DRM to the Test
-UPDATE 09-08-08-
One of the editors over at Ars Technica saw this post and contacted me in regards to writing a full featured review of the game for their front page--crazy! It has now been published:
http://arstechnica.com/reviews/games/spore-review.ars
Let me know what you guys think. (This is my first time being published, so please have low expectations!)
Upon arriving home from work yesterday I found a little box waiting on my doorstep from EA that contained a review copy of Spore. Of course I've been very aware of the game since its initial announcement, but really have only read (perhaps) only one preview over a year ago and have had no hands-on with it before yesterday. I certainly knew of the hype though--but was not caught up in that. I had little anticipation for the game.
Once I found the time yesterday, I sat down with the game for a few hours to check out what this...thing is. The installation itself took roughly 10 minutes and was on a single DVD. During the installation it was "highly suggests" that I allow the installation of the EA Downloaded so that Spore could stay up-to-date. I don't recall what it said verbatium--but it made it seem that this was the only way patches would be available to me. Since I already had the EA Downloader installed it was a non-issue for me, but I figured this might be an area of contention for some of you and probably worth mentioning.
I launched the game and was prompted to log in to my EA Online account (or to create one). Once I logged in I was allowed access to the games menu. This log in to EAs network apparently will allow you to have on-the-fly access to other users content--as well as yours. I have not figured out exactly how much it will effects you to play Spore in Offline mode (but I was warned that playing like that would make several features unavailable--but was never informed exactly what those features might be).
Gameplay
Where do I begin? With 4 hours of game time I've had hardly enough exposure to reveal everything I'm sure, but I'll just chat about what I experienced so far. I'll try to keep it brief.
Spore consists of 5 phases of evolution that are represented by 5 different types of games that you will venture into. Once you select which planet you wish to evolve on, you're presented with the option to be a Carnivor or Herbivor:
1st Phase (Top down perspective) - Much like Flow or Pacman, you wiggle around eating food, trying to staying away from predetors and trying to evolve. You gobble and grow, mate and reproduce, throw some parts on yourself and survive some more in the primordial ooze.
2nd Phase (third-person chase cam) - Like you've probably read elsewhere, this era plays much like World of Warcraft with several defferent attacks types (like Charge or Bite) and some abilities (like charm and dance) allow you to befriend some other species. If befriended, you can use their nest as a home (find mate and heal). I never did make any friends. I tried a few times to impress them with dancing and singing, but I never made them happy enough--so I wiped out their entire tibe and took over.
As you evolve in this stage, you are able to recruit more and more of your tribe to join you and attack as a pack. This was, by far, the most interesting expereince for me in this phase. Attacking another species as 4 others behind you join you is a really interesting feeling of comfort. It's pretty brutal out there and I needed all the help I could get. Some interesting notes: I spotted a unnatural shadow on the ground, looked up and it was a UFO circling around me studying me. Also, there was a gigantic T-rex running around. 3rd Phase (RTS, Multi-view) - Just a strategy game through and through with one resource to manage (food). This was a bit boring for me as it was just way too simple for my tastes and carried on way too long.
4th Phase (RTS, Multi-view) - This is also a strategy type of game, but with many more options. I hit my 4th hour once I had entered this phase and had to make dinner--so it was time to quit.
5th Phase - Unsure, did not play yet.
Graphics (My system: Q6600, 8800GT 512MB, 4GB DDR2)
Once the game was launched, it had unfortunately defaulted to 1024x768. A change to 1680x1050 required a restart of the game and made things a little prettier.
Throughout my 4 hours of play time, I never experienced a single hickup, stutter or crash anywhere--it was silky smooth! But to be frank, the game doesnt exactly look amazing--just average in most areas and pretty dull in others. I think the most impressive part for me was the first stage actually. As you swim your way through the primordial soup, below you resides a looming layer of scurring organisms. The depth-of-field effect that is used here is perfectly implimented as is reveals (subtly) different creatures or various sizes and shapes. It's subtle in the way that you're more concerned with your current area, focused on moving around and only until I noitced a humongous beaked, spiked organisms below me that could easily gobble me up did I sit back a bit and go "cool!" It creates this feared anticipation of what may come next! It might not sound that impressive in this text and probably is something you just have to see for yourself--but it's really a great effect. I hope that made sense.
Sounds and Music
The only music that has stuck out to me so far was the opening menu theme. It really reminded me of a mix between music from Mass Effect and Space Mountain (70's Scifi). It was great. The sounds I heard were top notch and pretty cute over all--in a "Sims" like fasion.
User Created Content
As one of the big bullet points for this title, I was interested to see how user created content was going to be integrated into the game.
When you mate or produce a baby in these phases, you will be brought to a creature creator tool. There are many many options and menus of various parts (depending on the era you're playing) that allow you to add and then customize, stretch, pull, push, rotate and tilt to your pleassure. One could just spend hours and hours in here if that's your thing. One tab allows you to choose a color theme and near the bottom is where you can access the Spore database of user created content. It's cool to browse and see what other people are doing.
Overall
The game is interesting overall and has definitely piqued my interest--but it hasn't captured me completely. It feels a little lifeless or without character. Perhaps it's almost too high concept to make for something with charm? To be fair, this may change as I complete the last two phases and discover more about the game. As it stands, I'm a little let down and not totally captivated by my experience so far.
I know this isnt the most comprehensive Spore post, but I wanted to give my two cents with my initial impression.
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