I downloaded the trial version of the Spore](http://www.spore.com/trial%22%3ESpore) Creature Creator during lunch and played with it a bit. Lots of fun, if the sandbox to run around in was a bit bigger it would be a game unto itself.
Hopefully the actual game lives up to my expectations.
The game so far has been getting a pretty bad rap because of its aggressive DRM/licensing restrictions. Crippleware.
I liked making little baby versions of my creature in the sandbox. The babies
mimic whatever the “parent” does, but the noises they make are 50 times as
cute.
About a month ago, they announced that they were revoking the 10-day online licensing check requirement.
http://www.spore.com/view/profile/Tinwhistler
And after only 48 hours, they had to invoke a “no making pronographic monsters” rule. For the unwisely curious.
But they left in the 3-activations restriction, triggered by hardware updates or system restores.
I hadn’t heard about the activation restrictions, I’ll have to look into it before deciding to buy it. And that I shouldn’t have watched the spore porn while the wife is trying to sleep, my laughter almost woke her up.
Wouldn’t run on my machine-- the graphics card is incompatible. Looks like fun though, so I’ll try on the laptop later
It seems that would only be enforced if your creature was somehow automatically uploaded.
This isn’t one of those games where you have to be logged in is it?
It probably only applies when you put it on sporeopedia. I know one guy
said he couldn’t put his on the 'pedia until he added a mouth.
I happened to pick this up for $10 from Target yesterday.
It turns our our Mac Mini won’t play it. If I weren’t so old and slow I could have seen that coming, I guess… that is, if I had read the microscopic fine print on the case, that says “will not run on GMA 950 class of integrated video cards.” And if I happened to know that was what was in a Mac Mini.
The thing is, this sort of compatibility nonsense goes against my sense of Mac-ness. I mean, I’ve played games, and installed cards, on PCs and Macs over the years, so I’m not a total newbie. But, till now, I’ve always felt that one advantage of the Mac was that it was a known, standard thing; so, if something is listed as “runs on Mac,” then, it runs on a Mac, right? With a PC, it’s more of a crapshoot, wondering whether this video card or that sound card will be compatible with that game, but Mac, being standard, was supposed to be better for “it just works” compatibility. Not so much, I guess, at least not anymore, now that games are so demanding on video cards.
Why did you buy a game trial that you can download for free?
The thing is, this sort of compatibility nonsense goes against my sense of Mac-ness. I mean, I’ve played games, and installed cards, on PCs and Macs over the years, so I’m not a total newbie. But, till now, I’ve always felt that one advantage of the Mac was that it was a known, standard thing; so, if something is listed as “runs on Mac,” then, it runs on a Mac, right? With a PC, it’s more of a crapshoot, wondering whether this video card or that sound card will be compatible with that game, but Mac, being standard, was supposed to be better for “it just works” compatibility. Not so much, I guess, at least not anymore, now that games are so demanding on video cards.
Macs have never been particularly good for playing the latest games.
The video cards are frequently underpowered, and the OS does not
allow enough direct exposure to the graphics engine for many of the
tricks game designers use.
But apparently, there is a workaround:
http://www.tuaw.com/2008/06/17/run-spore-creature-creator-on-unsupported-gma-950-macs/
The free demo has limited creation options.
They are charging $10 for a full version that will appear in the final game.
Mukade
Yeah, I figured that Macs don’t have the greatest graphics cards, but given a sort of mini-game that is basically just a creature editor, I was hoping our recently-purchased Mac Mini would be adequate.
As I understand it, the graphics chipset in the Mac Mini IS supported, when that chipset is in a PC. GMA 950 I think? You can run CC on a Windows box with the GMA 950, but not on a Mac with GMA 950. That’s a little annoying, just on principle. Apparently, when the product is running on a Mac, there’s emulation taking place.
All academic, since we also have a PC which runs the Creature Creator just fine. And yes, I paid the $10 because I was aware that the free download had less in it.
Plus, the $10 package has some sort of coupon in it for $5 off the purchase of the full product.
Oh, I didn’t know about the unlimited version for sale. Thanks, guys.
MusicalADD, did you try the link from my post above? I wonder if the same
process works for the purchased version? I’ve only tried the downloaded
Creature Creator on my laptop PC, but I may need to see if I can get it
going on my MacMini. I wonder if there would be a performance difference…
Crippleware. First time I heard that. Is this like MS-Word??? Nyuk.
Seriously, in a moment of haste, I signed up for Rhapsody today. I’m gonna actually pay but I do like to randomly find stuff and hear the whole thing.
Anyway, the tunes stopped three different times for no reasons (and the player said “Stopped”). Crippling streamingware, I reckon.
No I didn’t, it became a non-issue for us once the game was on the PC.
Oh, yeah. I missed that part. Oops.
Anybody running this on Vista?
I am.