Spore is a massive single-player online role-playing game that crosses many genres. It is a simulation game that requires strategy. Designer Will Wright has made a game that allows you to create a cellular creature and control its evolution as it develops from a single cell to a land creature, to a social animal to a civilization and finally delves into space exploration. The gameplay is open-ended and the outcome is dependent on decisions you make in each phase.

Creating Characters in Spore

You begin with a single organism that has plummeted to the planet on a meteor. Once this organism has eaten several times, you have DNA points to work with to add different features. Your creature continues to grow and change. You decide if your creature is an herbivore, a carnivore or an omnivore. As you get through the various stages, you'll get special bio-powers that are based on your creature's eating preferences. For example, herbivores are given the "Siren's Song" power during the Creature phase.

Expanding Your Character's Universe

As you progress through the game, your perspective and species change dramatically. Each phase affects those that come after based on your decisions. Each phase is more complicated than the one before. The phases of Cell, Creature, Tribal, Civilization and Space each have optional missions which earn you bonuses, like a new ability. Your creatures will behave the way you choose in the beginning. If you choose your species to be aggressive, this is how they will behave during later phases as well. If you choose for them to be more peaceful, they will continue this behavior as well. If your creatures are destroyed, your species goes back to the beginning of the current level or to the last viable point in its evolution.

Spore Ready to Take Over the Universe

Spore has already won numerous awards, including the following Game Critics Awards at E3 in 2005: Best of Show, Best Original Game, Best PC Game, and Best Simulation Game. In 2006, Spore won Best PC Game, Best Original Game and Best Simulation at E3. In 2008, Spore won the Game Trailers Award at E3 for Best PC Game and GameSpy's Overall Best of Show. In fact, so many people are already playing with the free demo that a number of celebrities have made their own. If you go to http://www.sporevote.com, you can vote on your favorite from among Spore creatures made by Neil Patrick Harris, Mario Lopez, Emeril Lagasse, or Curt Schilling.

This game promises to be phenomenal. The content each player creates is uploaded to a central database, catalogued and rated based upon how many other users download the creature or object in question. These creations are used to populate other players' games. The game can give you different outcomes each time you play just by changing some of the choices you make for your species. The simulation and strategic game play in Spore will keep you on your toes as you try to evolve your creature and gradually take control of the planet.