dpk’s weblog

Gameplay: I have only just reached the Civilization Stage, so I can only comment about the Cellular through Tribal. The Cellular stage is pretty straightforward with some surprises. I expected that my creature would use asexual reproduction while in the primordial soup. Instead, you have to find a mate and modify the offspring prior to hatching. Another surprise was that where you place the cell parts counts. For example, if you put spikes along the side of your cell, your overall “attack” rating goes up, but in order to actually use them in battle, you’ll have to rub up along side another cell.

The Creature stage is similar, except you’re on land, and you pick parts with different types of attacks and dances. I don’t think it is necessary to consider the exact placement of each part any more. You’re still fighting (or wooing) the other creatures in the realm, and you can bring in allied creatures to your “pack” to be more effective. This stage plays a lot like battles in World of Warcraft without being so tedious. The Tribal stage reminded me of every RTS I have ever played, but vastly simplified. There was nothing really notable about it.

The game plays pretty smoothly on my Macbook Pro. It’s much smoother in a window than it is full screen, but I have not tried it at a native resolution.

The install process: The installer did claim to require root access, even when I attempted to install the game in my home directory. I performed a Time Machine backup before and after the installation to see what it was changing. Aside from /Applications/SPORE, only one file was created: /Users/dpk/Library/Preferences/com.transgaming.tginstall.plist, presumably for Cider. I’m no super Mac genius, but I don’t see anything indicating that an alternative DVD driver was installed, or anything else harmful. If it’s using SecuROM, it doesn’t appear that it exists while the game is not running. FWIW: The disc does not have to be in the drive in order to play the game.

Finally: It’s definitely kind of fun so far. Once I do a complete run through to the Space Stage, I will probably go back and tinker with the creature designs a lot more, and I’ll play at a higher difficulty level to see if the challenge makes the game more fun.

Over the weekend I read a NYTimes article linked to from digg about the quality and quantity of online reviews. (If that link doesn’t work, here’s the link on digg, although be warned that the comments section is full of oh-so-funny kitchen/women jokes..)

Personally, I enjoy reading some reviews before buying a product. I usually look for the most negative reviews, and then some positive reviews, and decide whether or not I can accept the product’s limitations. (It’s kind of funny: buying something you want always seems to involve some compromise. It’s not as though I can order an item to my exact specifications.) But there are cases where the reviews are entirely worthless.

Case in point: the Spore reviews on Amazon. It looks like some people decided to have an anti-DRM party and focused on Spore. It’s probably seen as an easy target, because it’s been so anticipated. You won’t find reviews from honest people who actually purchased the game; instead you’ll see dozens of people complaining about a game that’s not even out yet.

Yeah, I get it. DRM is bad. I dislike DRM, too. I vehemently dislike DRM that requires me to keep the CD in the drive while I play the game. (As I understand it, Spore won’t require this. I haven’t received it yet, so I can’t confirm this personally.) But I doubt that flooding sites with anti-DRM reviews is really going to do anything. Here’s my bet: people who have heard of the game and go to Amazon to buy it will look at the low star rating and wonder: how could this be? They’ll go to the reviews and see how they’re all about DRM rather than game play, and then chances are most of them will ignore that (what’s a DRM?) and buy it anyway.

The way I see it: Don’t like DRM? Don’t buy or play the game. It’s that simple. Vote with your dollars and move on with your life. Find another game to play that doesn’t have DRM, and support the companies that make them.

Speaking of Amazon: why do they let people post reviews on games that aren’t even released?

There is an anarchy club here at school. One of the club rules is “everyone votes”. Heh.

So I’m taking a math class (pre-calc), mostly as a way to try to feel less dumb in my day-to-day life. I’m doing OK at it, getting most of the “higher” principles such as using conjugates to decomplexificate* a complex ratio. But I’m having trouble remembering some of the basics, especially during quizzes.

Historically, I’ve done better on quizzes than on homework, but now that I’m old, things have changed. Now I watch as other students finish their quizzes before I’m half way done with mine, and I still get things wrong.

I titled this post “math shame” because I hope that by sharing my shame, I will remember what I typed here, and will get it right the next time. Today’s inspiration is due to the fact that on a quiz, I forgot how to change √-2 into something that follows the “a + bi” form. I wrote 2i. The real answer, as pointed out by another student on our way out of class, is actually i√2. D’oh. If I had thought about √-4, I might have realized that’s really what 2i is.

I think this plan may work. There’s only two remaining class periods before the final, so I’ve got to get this shit down quick.

* Firefox says that’s not a word. Too bad.

Shouldn’t steampunkers use .plan and .project files?

And of course, I voted for Barack Obama. I’m proud of my vote, and I think he will make a great President. That said, the decision was incredibly simple. The only other viable candidate is so disappointing, anti-”elite” (read, anti-intellectual), and just plain despicable, that it would be impossible for me to vote for him.

I sincerely wish the choice was between two viable, reasonable candidates.