After a lengthy development, SPORE is finally in the public's hands. For my copy of SPORE I braved the EA download service and pre-ordered the game to get it early. I found first off that the EA download manager isn't as bad as everyone makes out. OK, the price is in no way competitive to others and I could have gotten it a lot cheaper with an on-line retailer like Play.com but for the most I am not disappointed with the service as the game downloaded fast and installed within minutes.

Starting up the game will introduce you to an elegant and intuitive interface making it easy for you start your epic journey. I'll give you quick overview of each of the 5 stages and then give my final view on the game.

Right from the start you choose and name your planet then pick whether you want to be a carnivore or herbivore and begin your game, I suggest going the way of the carnivore as it adds more variety later on in the game. Once you start you begin in the Cell Stage where you… more »

After a lengthy development, SPORE is finally in the public's hands. For my copy of SPORE I braved the EA download service and pre-ordered the game to get it early. I found first off that the EA download manager isn't as bad as everyone makes out. OK, the price is in no way competitive to others and I could have gotten it a lot cheaper with an on-line retailer like Play.com but for the most I am not disappointed with the service as the game downloaded fast and installed within minutes.

Starting up the game will introduce you to an elegant and intuitive interface making it easy for you start your epic journey. I'll give you quick overview of each of the 5 stages and then give my final view on the game.

Right from the start you choose and name your planet then pick whether you want to be a carnivore or herbivore and begin your game, I suggest going the way of the carnivore as it adds more variety later on in the game. Once you start you begin in the Cell Stage where you swim and eat your way to dominance in the primordial soup, in here you collect DNA to evolve and tackle bigger Cells till you evolve a brain and grow legs. Now you move onward to the Creature stage, just like the Cell stage you will be collecting DNA to evolve your creature but this time around you can now make alliances with other creatures, after collecting certain amounts of DNA your brain gets bigger and with each growth comes a new pack opening where you can add other or your own creatures to your pack so that they will follow you around and assist you with your goals, you can have a total of 3 altogether and once you have filled your DNA bar you evolve Planet of the Apes style to the Tribal stage before you move on you will want to make all the last adjustments here as this is the time you get to modify your creature. The Tribal stage turn the game into a basic Real Time Strategy game where you now conquer or ally with other tribes, doing so adds to your evolution bar and proceeds to the Civilisation stage. Much like the Tribe stage you conquer through destruction or alliance in the traditional RTS style but with an added option of an economic victory where you trade with and eventually buy others. Now all your hard work has paid off you evolve to the final stage, The Space stage, here you get to explore other worlds and trade, conquer or ally with other species throughout the galaxy. This stage is much more complicated than the others and can prove a little difficult at the beginning. With no endgame your free to continue for as long as you want in the Space stage.

I found that the customisation in the game from designing your own creature, vehicles and buildings was a brilliant and addictive feature but each stage up to the Space stage can easily be completed in well under 8 hours. The freedom over your creations is truly phenomenal and you'll have hours of fun just designing your perfect tank, house, cell or creature. If creation isn't your cup of tea then don't worry, with access to an extensive on-line archive of creations through the SPOREpedia you can play with millions of others creations. Your galaxy is also populated with creations from the SPOREpedia so everything you encounter is different.

Although a revolutionary game I found I couldn't play for hour on end as the simple kill/eat repeat cycle gets tiring. I found it at best for a quick romp and break from other games. Not nearly enough for the Hardcore gamers SPORE is unfortunately going to be less successful than I'd hoped, but the Casual gamers market will find a golden lollipop with SPORE.