The space portion of this game is incredible. The civilization part is alright, and the rest I could only see playing to unlock things. That said, I am still enjoying this game a lot. The creation is crazy.. I spend forever just creating things.

Got this today, gonna fire it up when I get home. YESSSSSSSSS

Really big backlash about this games DRM and the fact you can only install it 3 times. While it's a pretty fun game, it's a bit too simplistic in the gameplay. Even at the galactic level, once you've done the basic mechanics at least once it's very shallow.

Fun, yes, but not worth the money to purchase it.

I always felt ridiculous in how I got through the intricate stuff too. I basically started ingoring the computer during the Civ phase and just beefed up all my cities as far as they would go. Made the 48,000 or whatever required to blow everything up...it was a bit too easy.

Space was similar. I got so sick of all these stupid missions, so I just ignored them. For all the simple stuff in the game, terraforming with the right plants and animals was such a hassle. Many things, like DS said, felt so shallow. So I just attacked my enemies off the map until they no longer existed. Then I just gathered spice forever until I had enough to get all the stuff needed to get to the center of the universe.

After playing a few hours, I won't say I'm disappointed (because after initial reviews I knew what to expect), but it's clearly a more casual/non-gamer game. Just got to tribal and what I've played was fun but it went too quickly and was pretty much devoid of real depth. Not too crazy about the interface, either.

All in all, though, from what I've played, it's a game I could play once in a while just to have a little fun without much challenge. The creator is obviously awesome and worth it to me for that alone, but for anyone else, really, I'd wait until it's down to $30 or so. (Though I may change my opinion once I hit space.)

From a programming standpoint, it is pretty amazing. Whatever game combines the procedural animations with an awesome physics engine (like Euphoria) will be genius.

I totally agree. The community aspect is also very innovative. It's definitely a game that will set trends, but it's not the killer app everyone was expecting.

Ok, so I'm 2 years late but I've bought the game new for £9.99 and it should get here today or tomorrow. Wouldn't mind checking out whatever you guys have thrown togethor if you uploaded your stuff to the Sporepedia back when you played the game. So do I need your Spore names to look up your creations or something?

If anyone is worried about still having the Securom thing on their PC, even though they uninstalled the game, this might help.

Securom removal tool.

eHow instructions on removing Securom.

Lol, was wondering why spore was suddenly on the first page...
Gonna D/L this again, I remember playing it last time then stopping when it goes into strategy style

I've been reading up on the DRM/SecuROM and people are claiming it's broken their drives or monitoring their PC activity or whatever.
Looked on the FAQ page of the Securom site and it claims it does not affect PC performance and does not collect any info. Assuming they are telling the truth, good.
Though one line confuses me. It says nothing is sent to a server other than serial number, which I understand, and some "hash of your hardware" or something, which I don't understand. It says it's irreversible as well. What does it mean?

I'm really paranoid about my PC health/privacy and want to know exactly what's going into it. This is why I stick to console gaming 99.99% of the time.

Steam have Spore on sale for £22, Securom free. Signed up to Steam there and then and bought the game.

I'm only at the creature phase but the game seems ok. I actually enjoyed the cell phase more than I'm enjoying the creature phase.
Messed about with a few of the editors and the building/vehicle editor isn't as veristile as I thought it would be but I do enjoy the creature creator.
My game slows down unless I have the game on the lowest settings even though I far surpass the minimum requirments.

I'd say more but this isn't supposed to be a review. Two questions for you
1. How do I search for you guys creations on the sporepedia?
2. How would I put them into my game if it's on Steam and not disc based? Disc based copied you just have to right click them on the sporepedia web page and save them in your Spore folder. Same thing with Steam?