Due to EB stores around Australia being given incomplete information (no street date from EA), myself and a number of other Spore enthusiasts I know got very little sleep last night while enjoying this game. My boss is very lucky I didn't call in sick this morning, although I did bring the manual in with me to read if I get the chance. 
First impressions:
I can't think of anything more right now, but let me say the charm and humour of this game and its creatures has suckered me right in. Anyone else lucky enough to get their copy yet care to share some thoughts?
First impressions:
- In-game movies look very good! All done in-engine, and seem to run fast and smooth
- I love the sense of scale and changing scales when an amoeba. Also love that tidal forces become more of an issue as you scale up. Also love that the food is a little fractal - you nibble the edges of food you can devour as a larger creature
- Feeding frenzies surprised me - multiple predators taking down herds of herbivores, and groups of herbivores grazing on larger food pieces
- Moments of panic being chased by giant carnivores caused me to install a defensive electric shot organ at the back of my creature - very effective!
- I thought I would have some trouble maintaining a consistent 'feel' to my creature as he grew (I tend to min-max a little) but I found that I had an attachment/affinity for the little guy so he grew in natural progressions while keeping the same overall feel
- At no stage of the game did I find myself running short of DNA/SporeBucks to perform the customisations I wanted, nor did I hit the complexity cap although my creature was fairly conservative
- The ability to use a randomly-generated name for any creature/vehicle/building is a godsend when your attention is on some other part of the game
- A pack can be very useful, however I had to dump a couple of creatures as they didn't have interactions I needed to impress other creatures in order to form alliances
- Creatures I was trying to impress scattered, and when I looked up an alien spaceship was swooping around abducting things - I took lots of photos
- It took me a while to figure out exactly how the band works (in tribal phase) to play music, but after that I had fun with this feature!
- When another tribe sends you a give, one of your creatures has to fetch it and put it in the food stash
- You can domesticate multiple species (but only one of each), and they will lay eggs as a renewable resource
- Mech legs on vehicles don't have quite the motion I was hoping for - it's too smooth
- For some reason cockpits don't 'attach' to vehicle bodies - they remain independent when you move the body unlike other parts
- All three city takeover options in the Civilisation phase are cool - I loved my aerial trade fleets!
- It's nice to be able to use pre-made vehicles when you are in a hurry to finish the Civ phase to move onto space
- The first few space missions are pretty cool, but by this stage I needed sleep!
- It's nice that it lists a big chunk of the achievements that I haven't achieved, as it gives me something to work towards
- I added a couple of people I know as buddies, and was able to auto-download all their creatures to populate my worlds
- I did have some issues with logging on in-game, as well as when launching the game (running Vista 64), but I noticed similar launch issues with the Red Alert 3 Beta. Running in XP SP2 compatibility mode with Administrator privileges is a bit brute-force, but seemed to work the best
I can't think of anything more right now, but let me say the charm and humour of this game and its creatures has suckered me right in. Anyone else lucky enough to get their copy yet care to share some thoughts?
new Pc on the way
