Spore

The most highly anticipated game in recent history, Spore, was released this month. Why all the excitement? Spore is the latest game from Will Wright, creator of The Sims — the bestselling PC series of all time. Like its predecessor, Spore pushes the boundaries of contemporary game technology, and capitalises on new, novel trends.

In Spore, players guide a creature through its evolution as a species.  The creatures begin as small microbes in a primordial sea, and over the course of four stages become space-faring explorers. From the very beginning, the decisions you make impact the future of your creature. You must decide whether it eats meat, plants, or both, and if is agressive or defensive. The first stage—called the "cell stage"—is essentially a tutorial. Here, you learn to direct your creature (basic point and click), basic survival skills (keeping fed and avoiding predators), and how to customise your species.

The gameplay tends to sacrifice science in favour of cohesiveness and ease of play. One of these sacrifices is evident immediately: in the cell stage, you also learn that eating other creatures or bits of asteroid debris unlocks new genes for your creature. While this is simply not the case in nature, it is a clever mechanism for your advancement.  At any point in the game you can call for a mate, and add new genes you've collected (for example, spikes, or electric shocks) to the species. This process resembles intelligent design more than evolution,

Eventually, your microbe grows a pair of legs and is promoted to "creature stage", which takes place on land. Your new goal is to grow your brain.

You decide how your animal will look, what it eats, and whether it's a social creature or a xenophobic murder machine. This section looks like Warcraft and plays pretty similarly too. You mill around either befriending or attacking everything else you come into contact with. The idea is to collect DNA points which will allow you to further your creature's individual traits, and get you closer to that all important sentience. It's difficult to appreciate the depth of the customization element within Spore until you see it for yourself. Every conceivable part has been taken into consideration; choose height, weight, colour, and even the angles of your creature's limbs. Whether they're blade-wielding nutters or full fledged singing, dancing fairies, you can do it all.

Next comes the tribal stage. This is where your species starts to shine. You found a village, then branch out to meet others. How you deal with these other creatures is up to you. You can overwhelm them with your grace and finesse, or just plain overwhelm them. It's also worth mentioning that any traits your species developed during the previous stage are carried over. For instance if you're a hunter, with lots of obvious weaponry, stealth, and a liking for red meat, your creatures will be much more aggressive and feral. Every choice you make influence your animals' development. Also, you can use this section to form alliances with other tribes, if you're into that limp-wristed stuff. This part plays like a small scale RTS. You focus on gathering food, building your village and having kids.

After you dominate the other tribes (or befriend them, you pansy), we move to the civilization stage. As the name suggests, this section plays like a Sid Meir creation. You design and build your cities, manage them, and continue to expand. Again, you are given the choice between peaceful coexistence or just plain knocking the piss out of your opponents. This is based on controlling territories and resources, like any good strategy game. You mine a substance called spice (Dune anyone?) and use that to further your expansion, design your vehicles, and create your war machine. So you can slap everyone around until you get nukes, then obliterate the competition. Not that anyeone would want their creatures to become psychotic, genocidal, atomic wielding Neds. Sometimes it just kinda happens that way. There are also diplomatic and religious ways to complete this section of Spore, which translates as either making good friends with everyone or converting them like some crazed zealot.

The final stage of the game is the space stage. The idea is to create new colonies, make new friends and expand. Again you cannot appreciate the true scale here unless you experience it — the world map is an entire universe populated by other players. The effect is utterly breathtaking.

While Spore has only been available for a few weeks, it already seems likely to surpass its predecessor in sales and popularity. As is characteristic of Wright creations, Spore is a genre unto itself, and required years of research and development into the frontiers of computer science to become possible. Beyond these creative and technological marvels, the game remains a game, and is as complex, interactive and fulfilling as one could wish.

Spore is an excellent title. It seamlessly blends many game concepts into one beautiful masterpiece. Anyone can play Spore. This is a game you'll play over and over, each time finding new and interesting avenues to explore. There are no subscription charges to play online, and it's out now. This one's worth it.