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There's no disputing that people are enjoying the game's content creation system. That's because EA released the Spore creature creator in June as a free download in order to both stoke interest in the game and, perhaps more important, to populate the game's database of creatures with users' creations.

And it worked. The company says more than 2.5 million people got the creature creator and made more than 2 million different species, all of which will become part of the game.

What isn't known is how the rest of the game will go over, or how important that will be to whether it is a financial success. That's because, for the most part, EA hasn't shown very much of Spore's actual game play publicly. In a long series of demos over the last three years, it has mainly shown the creature creator and certain parts of the cell and space stages. But few people outside EA have seen extended play from the rest of the game.

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Mass Effect uses SecuROM and requires an online activation for the first time that you play it. Each copy of Mass Effect comes with a CD Key which is used for this activation and for registration here at the BioWare Community. Mass Effect does not require the DVD to be in the drive in order to play, it is only for installation.

After the first activation, SecuROM requires that it re-check with the server within ten days (in case the CD Key has become public/warez'd and gets banned). Just so that the 10 day thing doesn't become abrupt, SecuROM tries its first re-check with 5 days remaining in the 10 day window. If it can't contact the server before the 10 days are up, nothing bad happens and the game still runs. After 10 days a re-check is required before the game can run.

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When you open the box, a big slip of paper falls out first, preceeding any discs or manuals. The slip of paper says, essentially, that 2142 includes monitoring software which runs while your computer is online, and records "anonymous" information like your IP address, surfing habits (probably via cookie scans), and other "computing habits" in order to report this information back to ad companies and ad servers, which generates in-game ads.

Now, I can live with certain in-game ads (though apparently there will be Dodge truck and Neon ads in the bleak, futuristic world of 2142), but including a lengthy description - outside of even the Eula - seems to indicate even EA knows that this is some shady borderline spyware shit. I don't support it and won't be buying 2142 (for a host of other reasons, too).