Now's as good a time as any to play Spore, as a new patch has been released, as a response to community feedback. It certainly doesn't seem to be any crappy old thing either, reporting to fix bugs, tune gameplay, and offering another way of selecting multiple items to delete or ban in Sporepedia, as well as a new cube planet style.

To get the patch, just launch the EA Download Manager and install it. If by some chance you didn't install this when you installed Spore, you can get it here.

Note that this is PC only, but one for Mac users is planned for the near future. All details below.

Features

• Hold down the Control key in Sporepedia to select multiple creations for deleting or banning
• Hold down the Shift key in Sporepedia to select a range of creations for deleting or banning
• New planet style: Cubes

Graphics/Aesthetics

• Fix for game entry screen turning black when banning a creature in a Saved game
• Fixed issue with flora card in Sporepedia
• Space phase: Fixed graphic issue with water levels not updating properly with terraform tools so that visible water and atmosphere levels will now correspond in the Atmosphere monitor
• Fixed problems introduced via atmospheric and drought terraforming tools
• Improved gaits for multi-legged creatures
• Improved gaits for creatures with 2 limbs, but without any feet

Audio

• Space phase: Fixed missing VOX in some animations in Comm Screen
• Fixed audio issue with switching mode to 5.1 breaking music and VOX
• Fixed audio syncing issue when minimizing and/or maximizing Spore before opening video
• Fixed crash with city music player when Save and Load dialogs are present
• Fix for audio lag and missing models due background loading slow-down on certain single-processor machine configurations. This fix improved overall stability on this machine configuration

Tuning

• Space phase: Tuned relationship status to update in communication window after completing a mission
• Tribe phase: Tuned Normal difficulty mode to make social game easier

Miscellaneous

• Fixed the ESC key to consistently skip the Spore introduction movie
• Creators: YouTube video uploads are set to private. Go to YouTube.com and log in. Then go to Account >> My Videos to set them to Public if you want to share your videos with the world
• Creators: Fixed limb joints not being selectable behind other limbs
• Tribe phase: Fixed crash while harvesting fruit and fish
• Space phase: Fixed timing bug using Planet Buster during Grox invasion
• Space phase: Fixed destroyed turrets mission
• Space phase: Fixed crash when zooming out to full galactic view from the center of the galaxy
• Fixed for game entry screen staying zoomed in after deleting a game and entering/exiting Sporepedia
• Space phase: Fixed City Hall updating bug. City Hall will now update to correct version if player has chosen a new City Hall during the transition from Civilization phase to Space phase
• Space phase: Fixed Vehicles updating bug. Vehicles chosen in the Colony planner will now update without requiring the player to leave and re-enter a planet's atmosphere
• Fixed crash when transitioning from Tribe phase to Civilization phase
• Discontinued the Bad Baby Achievement