Spore Islands launches on Facebook, prepare to drown in invites

by Griffin McElroy { Nov 6th 2009 at 3:00AM }

You likely spend a great deal of your time on Facebook informing your so-called "friends" that, no, you don't want to see their farm, or join their mafia, or become a vampire, or fight their superhero, and so on. We're afraid you'll be adding a new form of denial to your repertoire: "No, I don't want to birth a species from the loam, and force it to fight against your species in an adorable Flash-based display of survival of the fittest." It's a tad verbose -- but if you're not interested in EA's Spore Islands Facebook app, you're going to be saying it a lot in the coming weeks.

If genetic engineering is your bag, Spore Islands sounds like a fairly robust offering -- well, as robust as games built into social networking sites get, anyways. Players can create a species, plunk them down on an island, watch them fight for territorial dominance, improve their stats through evolution, then move them to a friend's island to attempt a hostile takeover. You can check out the game for free on EA's Facebook page -- just go easy on the invites, okay?

Tags: ea, facebook, flash, free, maxis, online, social-networking, spore, spore-islands

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

SpyderTaco (PSN: Ar4chNova89) @ Nov 6th 2009 3:22AM

They took all of the interesting things about Spore and made it a Facebook App.
That says a lot about the content in Spore...

And I'm one of the suckers who bought it at launch.

Meh @ Nov 6th 2009 4:27AM

I preordered it for $80. Finished in five hours. >.>

The Baron @ Nov 6th 2009 7:04AM

It's so weird. EA seem to assume that because it's made by Will Wright that everyone wants to buy hundreds of different versions of the same game. Stuff like Spore Hero on Wii etc? Who's buying this crap - didn't the original game tank?

dark_inchworm (stronger than never, ever before) @ Nov 6th 2009 9:19AM

I'd say selling at least 2 million copies (can't seem to find recent numbers) isn't necessarily tanking.

Electro Poof [Super Nintendo IT ONLY DOES EVERYTHING - Now Only $29.99] @ Nov 6th 2009 3:31AM

I fucking hate Mafia Wars, my "friends" on facebook won't stop sending me invites for it. Now this?

GODDAMMIT!

Giroro @ Nov 6th 2009 3:54AM

I remember when facebook used to be cool.

Long ago, before the tweens found out about it.

2nd Lieutenant Gunther (PSN: helghast102) (Getting a DS :D) @ Nov 6th 2009 3:59AM

It used to be cool? i thought it was always tweens and kids?

oh well, my technologically impaired mum & dad are on there.. says alot really :/

rudolphe @ Nov 6th 2009 6:30AM

No, all the tweens were still on Myspace. The whole thing is there is no way the "tweens" can interfere with your experience if you don't have them on your friends list. Facebook is what you want it to be.

dark_inchworm (stronger than never, ever before) @ Nov 6th 2009 9:33AM

"The whole thing is there is no way the 'tweens' can interfere with your experience if you don't have them on your friends list."

And how do they do so on Myspace? I'm confused, really. The only substantial problem I've ever had with Myspace is a GIF/Youtube assault when treading into other profiles. That's not them coming to you, that's you going to them.

Facebook, however... no matter how hard I try, my feed is always swamped with quiz results and farm animals.

briankun @ Nov 6th 2009 3:06PM

You must not try very hard. Click the "Hide" button and all the posts made by that application disappear. Facebook is far nicer without Farmville, Pick Your Five, and other stupid crap cluttering up your experience -- and it takes almost no effort to make it that way.

dark_inchworm (stronger than never, ever before) @ Nov 7th 2009 1:46PM

"You must not try very hard"

You must not realize that new applications pop up every couple of days, and I'd honestly rather skip over the bullshit than click "Hide" on every single fucking thing I don't like.

Though, of course, I'd rather it not be there in the first place. Ah, the price you pay to enjoy social networking.