bit-tech Shopping: Electronic Arts SPORE (PC)

• Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional
• Microsoft Windows Vista
• Microsoft Windows XP

Rating: 8

Time with product: 1 Week

Strengths: Creative, Easy to Play, Fun, High Replay Value

Weaknesses: Slow in the beginning

Summary: Overall a great game with little to complain about. It's like Sims, but in a global/expanded universe kind of way. I find the characters fun and easy to be entertained with. I like the creativity factor in this game. Also, this is extremely easy to pick up. Pick up this game to enjoy on your Mac or PC.

Rating: 8

Time with product: 4 Days

Strengths: 4

Weaknesses: 4

Summary: Whats nice thing is game in piece of our world.It?s a shame that some aspects of the opening ruin the flavour a little beca The significance is staggering. Simply staggering.

Rating: 8

Time with product: 3 Weeks

Strengths: Impressive scale, nearly endless possibilities for creatures and other creations, user created content

Weaknesses: Early stages quickly grow boring, space stage requires far too much babysitting, sometimes a somewhat limited selection of parts for creations

Summary: I remember when Spore was announced at least a couple of years ago - the sheer idea was overwhelming. Flash forward to today, and, well, frankly, the game is a little underwhelming. First: Creating stuff is great. A universe full of a constant influx of unique creatures is a great idea. Too bad it almost always ends up being Maxis created characters, unless you manually dig through the thousands of mediocre user-created ones for something you like. The various stages are fun, or at least the first few times. But after a little bit, you'll want to skip the cell stage and just jump straight to the creature creator and advance to a later stage. Space is easily the best part - simply because it lasts so much longer. Imagine if you tried to conquer the galaxy! Only catch is, every 5 minutes, you get a warning that there's an impending bioepidemic on some backwater world of yours. So you have to stop in the middle of your (very long) trek to the center of the galaxy, and go back to eradicate a couple of animals that your empire -should- be able to take care of on its own (but of course, your burgeoning empire only has one ship in its fleet. And if you don't - well, you'll continually be reminded of new bioepidemics, and pretty soon, that planet won't have an ecosystem. Or better yet, pirates will continually raid you, and you are expected to defend it all by yourself? Overall, it's still very fun, and collecting badges is a great idea (if not very time consuming). There are just some things that need thoroughly re-adjusted (and some users have decreased the frequency of these events so that you can go on your merry way). I expected so much from this game simply from the premise, and sadly, it didn't quite live up to the hype. So, wait a little bit and don't spend too much on it. It's still a good game, just not worth paying $50 for.