My Beloved Monster

It was a bloody battle waged between extortionate retail pricing and my own financial inadequacy. The outcome: Victory! Crysis, Silent Hunter and Paper Mario were but a few of the casualties lost in the good fight to obtain a copy of Spore, but in the end there was no question as to who would win. To the victor the spoils. To the store staff, an extra fiver and a thank you.

Spore was purchased.

I installed it on my lunch break, which in itself was a trial. The irony of the installer crashing every time it attempted to copy over the support files was not lost on me. I got angry and then copied all the files onto my hard drive manually. Installing it from there went far more smoothly.

Another well-deserved win!

Next came the horror of the message that advised the game needed online verification. No, I'm still not connected to the internet and yes, I am still seething about it. What ensued over the next half an hour involved a lot of sweat and swearing. By the end I was a wreck, both emotionally and physically, but the war was over. The title screen was in sight. Spore had arrived.