iGame Radio

Here’s my update on that Spore install. I’ll be honest and say that I really don’t know whether I needed to update Leopard, or whether it was because unlike everyone else, EA chose to place the “agree” and “disagree” buttons for the EULA exactly the opposite of most everyone else…but this morning I had no problem installing Spore. And I found out a few very interesting things for us Mac gamers.

First, you don’t need to have the DVD in the computer to run the game. Now, I say this as someone who has not registered an account yet (actually, I already have an account with EA, I just haven’t activated it with my copy of Spore yet). I wanted to find out how much fun you can have with the game without doing so. So I can’t yet say whether the DVD is required if you want to participate in the online community.

Secondly, you don’t need to be online to play the game. You do need to be online to activate the game, but after that, there seems to be no need. Once again, the caveat is that I’m not participating in the online community. Obviously, if you do, you have to be online to do so. But you don’t have to be online if you don’t. I played for about 45 minutes and the game never tried to access anything online in the process (or rather, if it did, it never threw an error at me as I had my airport card off).

This has some exciting prospects for Mac users. It says that the DRM for the game for the Mac is not seemingly as stringent as the rumors have spoken for the Windows version. SecuRom does have a Mac version, but it may or may not operate in the same fashion as the Windows version. Regardless, it does not seem to operate in the same way for this game, as there is no regular contact with the company website, and no requirement after activation to be online.

However, some of the biggest DRM issues probably still exist on the Mac version, those being only 3 installs ever (unless you want to beg Mommy EA for more), and only one Spore account per game (unlike what the manual has said, you can only register one account per game). I’ll report back more on this as I play the game.

But the game itself is as awesome as others have said, and as awesome as it was when I played it at PAX. I’m testing it out, as mentioned before, on my MacBook Pro using a MacAlly Accuglide…I’ve found using the trackpad rather cumbersome. I’m still conflicted as to whether the mouse or the WASD keys are better for movement, though. Heh.