Spore Creature Creator!

Spore, the next big game from Sim-creator Will Wright, is on its way and it promises to be fun for the entire family.

Spore, the next big game from Sim-creator Will Wright, is on its way. It promises to big, friendly, easy to get into, and fun for the entire family. But you’re going to have to wait until September because it’s not out until then.

Luckily, there is something to tide you over in the mean time.

Spore Creature Creator gives you but a sampling of Spore by way of half of what the game is about. In Spore, you’ll see your creature take on the various stages of evolution, from amoeba to fish to mammal to civilisation and so on. Spore Creature Creator lets you see one side of what this is all about by letting you play with the modeling tools you’ll have at your disposal when you’re shaping your very own species.

Built off of the same engine powering Spore, Creature Creator allows you to tween, grow, enhance, enlarge, magnify, and shape your creature in just about any way possible from the globulet of clay you’re given to start with. From there, it’s just a matter of adding what ever body parts tickle your fancy, say that of a nose, mouth, eyes, limbs, hands, feet, weapons, and decorations that help make your creature just that little bit extra unique.

The interesting part to note with Spore Creature Creator is that no two creatures will ever be alike and that every time you play you’re probably going to get something new, something different. For instance, the way your character sings or make noises comes from a combination of variables like body shape and the sort of eyes and nose you give it.

Excellent to note too is that you’re not limited by anything other than your imagination when you’re building a creature.

Do you want six eyes? How about four noses? An ear where the mouth would normally be and a mouth where the armpits are? Sure! Why not, you’re the “creator” here!

In fact, that’s one of the ways you can view your time in Spore Creature Creator: if you were given the power to craft your very own species, what would you do?

Graphically, Spore Creature Creator looks a treat and shows off just what the Spore engine will do nicely. Feeling like a cross between a dress-up doll and a jar of Playdo, I’m sure you’ll find that anyone in your family – from ages three to 99 – will get into this without needing to grab for any sort of a learning curve.

The sad part about Spore Creature Creator is its availability: good luck finding it. Creature Creator was available in a few of the newspapers last weekend but good luck finding it in Australia otherwise. It’s listed for release in another newspaper later this month but other than that, you’ll have to settle with ordering from the EA New Zealand store or playing with the trial.

There are some people who will complain and say that this is just a demo and not much fun can be had from it. But I challenge those people because I think that anyone can get a smile, a hint of joy, some element of laughter when they create their creature.

And if Spore is anywhere near as simple and funny and otherwise brilliant as Creature Creator is, it’ll be hard to top it as game of the year.

Reviewed by Leigh D. Stark