David Thomas is a nationally syndicated videogame journalist, critic and teacher. He co-authored the Videogame Style Guide and Reference Manual, so he knows that PONG is written in uppercase and that it wasn’t the first videogame. His current favorite game of all time is Rock Band.

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Get Spore Free (At least part of it)

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June 17, 5:13 PM

by David Thomas, Video Game Examiner

I made him myself! One of countless creatures you
make with the Spore Creature Creator

Need more Spore?

No need to wait. Today the folks behind the latest and greatest in The Sims-SimCity franchise have released the Spore Creature Creator. For only $10 you can get a taste of the game, which will launch September 7^th. Even better, for nothing, you can try out a demo version of the editor.

Head over to www.spore.com to grab the demo creator editor.

Clicking and dragging, sticking and stretching parts, you can assemble a a surprisingly wide-variety of creatures. Once you get them put together, you can walk them around, make them pose and snap pictures.

And while the fun might not last that long, the editor does what it is supposed to do—show off what promises to be one of the coolest parts of Spore—a game that lets you build and evolve crazy creatures from simple organisms swimming in a primordial sea to space faring aliens with 10 eyes and claws for hands.

What is most amazing about the Creator Editor is that it works so well that is just seems easy. A few years ago I asked lead designer Will Wright what was the most challenging part of putting together Spore. Without hesitation, he told me that building a system that would allow any oddball creature the player built to be able to walk around was the hardest by far.

So, now we have the Spore Creature Creator and can marvel about how simple it all seems, and much fun it can be to build Mr. Potatohead-like animal dolls and watch them stumble around.

Spore Creature Creator. PC and MAC. EA Maxis Available September 7th. $10.

Topics: games , Spore

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