I appreciate the replies. I figured there was no way to just remove one patch, but I've never had these sorts of problems before, so I figured if there WAS a way, you guys would be the ones to know. I also realized that 1.4 isn't any different from 1.3, but this problem has just started after patching yesterday, so I'm not sure what else it could be. I used to be able to run Sims 3 for hours upon mindless hours without any computer burn out, so five minute shut downs is a new development.

I patched to 1.4 yesterday. My computer's not the best model by any means, but up until yesterday's patching, I had no problems playing (a very ugly version of) the game; however, my computer now shuts itself down with no warning after a few minutes of gameplay. It doesn't seem to be getting overheated, and I didn't have the problem before. Could it be the patch, or would it be something else? If the patch might be the culprit, how could I go about unpatching this damn thing? I'm living abroad and hence had to rely on the bugged EA website download to get the game, so any advice would be really helpful. I wish it threw error codes or SOMETHING at me, but all it's doing is shutting down. I'm playing mod-free at the moment.

This incredibly stupid question has caused me to delurk, I'm sorry!

I live in Japan, so I had planned on ordering Spore online and just dealing with the crappy download system in order to play it. However, for some reason, despite working fine before, the website now INSISTS on always redirecting me to the EA Japan site, and no matter what I do I can't get back to the US site in order to buy the damn game in English and with my American payment methods. (If I do get the US store, the 'add to cart' button does nothing. Excellent!)

So I decided to arr the game.

This is my first time arring a game. I admit I don't really know what to do. I'm a bit of a n00b. I've got the iso unpacked, but how do I install without an activation key? I'm sorry for the real stupid question, but I figured you guys would answer without giving me a preachy moral lecture.

Thanks!

[edit] I'm stupid and figured it out! I didn't see the link on the torrent site originally. Sorry if I wasted anyone's time!