Spore is games guru Will Wright's new simulation-of-everything game thats been delayed for quite a while. The latest news is they are going to come out with the final version this september7. Maxis and EA games have already put out their beta software "Creature Creator".

Spore is the latest buzz in the gaming arena all because of the way its been designed and produced. Unlike most of the games that make it into the market nowadays, which hires armies of content creators and warehouses full of coders... Will Wright has apparently come out with a revolutionary way of creating personalised gaming for each person who comes in touch with the game.

Will Wrights answer to the new dillemma of modern gaming was Spore.

The game starts out as the player being a single cellular organism in a puddle of green goo. An oppertunity to lay an egg is awarded upon eating enough green cell while avoiding brown and black ones. when the egg is layed the Creature Creator jumps open and the player is given the oppertunity to evolve into the next generation by giving the offspring whole new sets of mouths, vertebre, claws anything imaginable. the creator is highly flexible and the animation is not hard coded, so the game figures out on its on how a six leged critter would walk. that some AI for you. The newer generation will have better tools to deal with its environment, like this offspring we were talking of would be able to eat brown and black microrganisms, move faster etc.

MOving a few levels up the game, the goo could get replaced by water or even land depending upon what features you give each of your spawned higher generations, maybe the microorganism would grow up to swim through water ( simulated in 3D) without fins or or legs- like a snake.

The single most important feature of the game is its creature database. the database is shared over the internet , where each player can either create his or edit others creature and submit. so you might actually be snaking on somebody elses creature.

The 3D creature editor is an awsome feature with the user able to configure the cerature in all possible ways, like stretch and pull and tug or fatten it any way you liked, almost like working with clay. More importantly, you could add functional elements, like heads, mouths, eyes, tails, fins, claws, even legs and feet.

The programming behind this game is so extreme and efficient that without a 3D modeller or animator the editor is capable of findin out a way to move any of your creations, it could find a way to walk a 3 legged monster with just a smart enough programme, and no 3D animators. The great thing about dynamically creating these animations, it turns out, is that they can be mixed on the fly. So, while Wright was eating another creature, so that the creature would drag the carcass along the ground.

In addition to adding to the creatures legs, claws , mouths and tails you can invest in its brain power. When the brain develops enough the creature takes a leap in the evolutionary ladder into - Sentience.

What makes Spore unique is that it starts out with a cut ou aim: to survive the various stages of life, starting with the simplest stages of all, and after you get used with the editors and every stage of the lifeform's development you can simply play around with entire worlds and solar systems.

In the process you can try out every science fiction cliche you have heard about like Invasion? Supervision? Uplifting? First Contact? Abduction/Cross-Breeding? Diplomacy? The game is what players make of it.