Imagine controlling a whole species through evolution, deciding its characteristics and physical features in the first "simulate everything" game. That was the idea of Will Wright, creator of the Sims, and Spore was supposed to be the game that revolutionised the industry. In reality, although the concept is great and has the potential to be groundbreaking, Spore is just an extremely boring and repetitive series of mini-games. These mini-games are broken down into stages of evolution for your new species: cell stage, creature stage, tribal stage, civilization stage and the space stage.

The creature stage is the beginning of the long drag that makes up the rest of Spore. Now your creature has legs and lives on land, and you get to collect more DNA points by either attacking other creatures or by making friends with them. I could forgive the Cell stage for being basic because you're a cell; there's nothing more basic than that. I'd expect at least some complexity to slip in here, but nope. Attacking involves repeatedly clicking, and this stage involves repeatedly attacking. If you want a game like this, try any number of MMORGs (massively multiplayer online role-playing games) available, for free. They're more fun.

Next you hit the civilization stage; no prizes for guessing what game that could be like. In all honestly Spore doesn't improve here. It's the same basic, boring repetitive tasks carried out in an over simplified environment. Meet another species, attack or make friends with them, find another species, attack or make friends, etc. At least there's only one more stage to go.

On a more positive note, the creature editor is fantastic. The sheer volume and variation of what it allows you to do is to a level I've never seen before. You can edit your creature's appearance however you like, however the game removes some of the customisation in the way that it works. For example, you could choose a really great looking mouth with a stat of +1, or a less pretty mouth with stat +5. You have to put the stat gain before the customisation in order to progress; the stats are what get you to moving forward in the game. Also, the creature you create has to live on land (or water in the cell stage). No fish, no birds, no animals that live underground. Although two creatures may look different visually, they are essentially the same if you play them in the same style. There isn't as much variation available as the game would like you to believe.

Even if I had given this game five stars I'd still find it impossible to recommend purely because of the DRM that comes bundled with it. EA dictate that although you may pay £30 for this game, you are only allowed to install it three times. After that you have a worthless piece of plastic that you may be able to find another use for by watching children's art shows. Effectively, you don't own this game. You are only renting it and should you need (not want, NEED) an extra install you must either beg EA for the right to play the game you purchased or go and buy another copy. Should you choose to tackle EA's customer support you will be charged for the call, and they will make you jump through all kinds of hoops with no guarantee of allowing you an extra install. Three installs may seem like enough until you consider the circumstances that would result in you using one up. Reinstalling the game, upgrading hardware such as a graphics card or adding additional RAM, getting a new computer, reformatting your hard drive either voluntarily or because something broke, and upgrading from XP to Vista all use up an install. You will find no mention of SecuROM (the anti-piracy software that gets installed whether you want it to or not) anywhere on the case or with the game information, and it is impossible to remove without reformatting your computer. No game, however great, is worth the hassle that comes with DRM this invasive, certainly not a game the calibre of Spore. The limited installs won't really be an issue as I see no reason to ever want to install this more than once.