So, I decided that I wanted to go back and play Spore. Don't ask me why, I just did.
I had a good enough time with it last year, why not reinstall it and make Space Romans? So, reinstall I did, and after half an hour I booted it up. 5 seconds in, crash. Not even a logo, just "up yours" and away it goes. This continues for a while. I reinstall again, and again, but to no avail. I check EA's support page, and set about that. An hour later, I reinstall again. Same problem. So, I go to the trouble of updating my drivers, but still, to no avail.
So, I continue following page after page of "support" and the problem persists. It mocks me, with it's promises of Pizza Men in hamburger spaceships, a game I want to play again. I break down an hour later and resolve to send a personal email to support instead. Your issue may be better suited to our instant messaging support service, was my reply. So, I wait in a queue for 20 minutes before I'm put through to Harris.
Harris is obviously not his/her name, and his lack of grammar or punctuation did not help one bit. I go through several steps, namely Harris sending me to pages I've been to with what seemed like decades between Harris' helpful responses. For God's sake, Harris, wake up.
Which leads me to update my drivers again and perform a manual reinstall. Let it be known that this was after nearly two hours of a back and forth between me and Harris. The manual reinstall alone takes about 20 minutes under my inexperienced hands. But I persevere. I reinstall. Harris has gone, but I have no need of him. I am tantalisingly close to my Space Romans scurrying about Space Rome with their Space Chariots. 20 minutes later, and I boot up my game.
I see a splash screen. Hey, I thought, it worked! I see a title screen, a main menu, a login screen! Joy of joys, I'm in! I log in and, oh, a patch is available? SIGN ME UP!
Back to the aggresively grey InstallSheild Wizard to assist in my patching.
"ERROR"
FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU-
InstallShield was interrupted during patching. I try to reboot Spore and it failed. Again and again, it fails. Back at square negative one.
So, after roughly six hours of trying to sort Spore out, I'm left thinking that it was not worth it at all. I am this close to dropkicking my copy into a furnace.
I had a good enough time with it last year, why not reinstall it and make Space Romans? So, reinstall I did, and after half an hour I booted it up. 5 seconds in, crash. Not even a logo, just "up yours" and away it goes. This continues for a while. I reinstall again, and again, but to no avail. I check EA's support page, and set about that. An hour later, I reinstall again. Same problem. So, I go to the trouble of updating my drivers, but still, to no avail.
So, I continue following page after page of "support" and the problem persists. It mocks me, with it's promises of Pizza Men in hamburger spaceships, a game I want to play again. I break down an hour later and resolve to send a personal email to support instead. Your issue may be better suited to our instant messaging support service, was my reply. So, I wait in a queue for 20 minutes before I'm put through to Harris.
Harris is obviously not his/her name, and his lack of grammar or punctuation did not help one bit. I go through several steps, namely Harris sending me to pages I've been to with what seemed like decades between Harris' helpful responses. For God's sake, Harris, wake up.
Which leads me to update my drivers again and perform a manual reinstall. Let it be known that this was after nearly two hours of a back and forth between me and Harris. The manual reinstall alone takes about 20 minutes under my inexperienced hands. But I persevere. I reinstall. Harris has gone, but I have no need of him. I am tantalisingly close to my Space Romans scurrying about Space Rome with their Space Chariots. 20 minutes later, and I boot up my game.
I see a splash screen. Hey, I thought, it worked! I see a title screen, a main menu, a login screen! Joy of joys, I'm in! I log in and, oh, a patch is available? SIGN ME UP!
Back to the aggresively grey InstallSheild Wizard to assist in my patching.
"ERROR"
FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU-
InstallShield was interrupted during patching. I try to reboot Spore and it failed. Again and again, it fails. Back at square negative one.
So, after roughly six hours of trying to sort Spore out, I'm left thinking that it was not worth it at all. I am this close to dropkicking my copy into a furnace.
Well, after a spoiler'd wall o' text, we arrive at my question.
Has pre-game experience ever soured your opinion so much that you just cannot be bothered?
