Accessories

Excellent for for ALL ages
Got this for my boyfriend on his 24th birthday. Upon seeing him play it, I loved it too (28 years old). We often play it together, or bicker over who gets to play it solo. My cousins (ages 10 and 13) love it too. Excellent game, lots of fun, adjustable difficulty levels. Just save the game frequently, as it has sporadically crashed twice on our Mac. (FYI, we havent had ANYTHING crash on our Mac, which we have had for one year, so I'm hesitant to think the problem is with the Mac.) Either way, the game is fun and worth the $.

Just buy it
My son and I are TOTALLY addicted to this game. When we play a video game it is Spore we play.

DO NOT SUPPORT EA!!!!!
the game incorporates a draconian DRM system that requires you to activate over the internet, and limits you to a grand total of 3 activations. If you reach that limit, then you'll have to call EA in order to add one extra activation. That's not as simple as it sounds, since when you reach that point EA will assume that you, the paying customer, are a filthy pirating thief. You will need to provide proof of purchase, reasons why the limit was reached, etc, etc (it has all happened before with another recent EA product, Mass Effect). EA, of course, is not obligated to grant you that extra activation or even provide that service. In a couple of years they might very well even shut down the general activation servers, because "it's not financially feasible" to keep them running. What you will be left with is a nice, colorful $50 coaster. And you will be required to pay for another copy/license if you want to continue playing.

I TOTALLY AGGREE!!

Below Average Game Crippled with SecuROM
First, the game's concept is awesome.

Second, the implementation is crap. For example, you would think that if you wanted to create a warlike creature, you would gain some benefit by placing weapons and spikes all over the creature. However, this is not the case. It doesn't matter if you give him a dozen spikes, he will do the same damage as a pacificist blob with no spikes. Where is the role playing experience here? The only thing your design changes is the way the creature looks, not his stats or abilities... thus its a dumbed down evolution sim. Imagine Darwin's surprise when the monster shark that evolved huge jaws and teeth was killed by a pacifist sloth...

Finally, this is an EA title, thus it installs SecuROM, which is a hidden rootkit which you are unable to uninstall and causes random crashes, privacy concerns, etc. For the life of me I cannot figure out why publishers pay SecuROM for this disservice. The game gets cracked and released on the internet anyway, so all it does is piss of paying customers.

I actually bought this :(
I was really looking forward to this game - first one I've bought in years. Incredibly cute and pretty - but I think it could probably do with it's own special rating - "not suitable for ages over 10". Once you've been through the stages up to space you'll never do them again - and OMG - it is just so mind numbingly boring. I've had about 12 hours play for my money before I gave up - if you have to buy this see if a friend's got it first and check it out - forget the youtube cutesy videos. I feel like I've been conned :(
To give it some merit it is a nice "toy" for kids to show off their design skills.