From the creator of The Sims comes the most ambitious video game ever made: here you don???t just control a single family or city but control an entire species from a single cell organism to a galactic conqueror. As impossibly complex as that might sound, the most impressive thing about Spore is just how accessible and fun it all is. The game is split into six evolutionary phases, starting with almost action-style gameplay at the microscopic level. From there you move to the creature phase on dry land, before going on to the tribal phase and the beginnings of society and technology. From there it???s onto the city phase, which plays a bit like SimCity, and from there to the Civilisation phase which plays something like, you guessed it, Civilization. The final phase takes part in outer space where by hook or by crock your species must reign triumphant.

Each phase has its own editing tools associated with it for things like vehicles and buildings. By far the most fun though is the creature tool, which allows you to create your own fully animated lifeform from scratch using a huge range of limbs, facial features and colourings. What???s also interesting is that the other planets in the galaxy aren???t all pre-populated by the game. Instead, by connecting online you can upload your races, and download those from other people, to fill the galaxy with civilizations from other players around the world. Any one of the six phases would normally be enough for any one game on its own, but this looks like it???s going to turn out to be the world???s first everything simulator.
HARRISON DENT

This game is great and the space stage is amazing there is over 50,000 planets. So I don't know how people can say that they should have spent more time making the game. They spent 10 years making it!!!!!!!!

We really don't care about the DRM and the endless debate about it. My 11 year old son loves Spore. He's really enjoyed every bit of it, and he's now looking forward to getting some of the parts packs for Xmas. He loves all of the ways you can create in this game and the different avenues you can take with it. Fun!

I have only been playing this game a short while and i am already captivated, the bacteria stage is fun and allows you to grab the basics of the game (e.g. add the right mouth for what you eat)and settle into it. After this stage though comes the fun part the Creature Stage here you can design your creature in what ever way you want you can make anything from a shapless blob to a dragon !!! I can only assume the people who gave this game a bad review either were expecting another age of empires or have no imagination but so far its a thumbs up from me :)

I bought this for the eldest lad and now the only time I can get on the computer is when he's at school! It's a game that is helping his design skills, he's created some great monsters and as he wants to get into computer game design this is quite a good start for a kid.

This game is dreadful - My 6 year old's Barbie games have more depth and better graphics. To add insult to injury I tried to sell my copy on Ebay and have just had to refund the purchaser because they can't re-register the game even though it's a legitimate copy. Once the game has been registered once, EA lock those registration details to the game code and refuse to allow any changes. The only way anyone else can play the game is if you give them your registration details including email, password etc. EA certainly won't be getting any more of my money.