Spore: Most Ambitious Game Ever?

• Download Exclusive Creature Creator

The next game from Sims mastermind Will Wright is big. And not just "lots of levels" or "ruins your hard drive" big. Nor do we mean "will sell a billion units" or "will take you three years to complete" big.

We mean it could be the most ambitious computer game ever conceived.

Taking players from the dregs of the primordial soup to the furthest reaches of the galaxy -- with a few pit stops in Web 2.0, for good measure -- Spore is four huge games in one.

First, it's Pac-Man, starting you off in a drop of water as a single-celled organism simply eating to stay alive. Provided you do, you'll grow into a comically alien creature and romp around the planet in a 3D action game. Eventually you'll meet and mate with others of your kind, forming a tribal society that will interact diplomatically, militarily, and even religiously with other tribes on the planet. And over time, you'll develop the ability to blast off the rock and travel the galaxy, scouring thousands of other planets as a trader, conqueror or explorer.

And that's only the half of it. Just released to the gaming masses as a stand-alone demo, Spore's creature creation tool turns evolution into something of an art project. Using their mouse, players twist, pull, stretch and smash a 3D ball of clay, first into a multi-limbed monstrosity, then later into vehicles, buildings and spaceships. It's pretty intuitive, too -- within a scant few minutes of tinkering around with the demo, we birthed a six-legged ape bug that might as well have been yanked straight out of a Pixar film.

WILL WRIGHT EXPLAINS SPORE VIEW SCREENSHOTS

Maybe you'll spot it in your world, too. Thanks to some technical razzle dazzle, the creatures players create become the inhabitants in other players' games. If you want to customize your game world a certain way, you can sift through an online library called the Sporepedeia, drag creatures off the site and drop them straight into your game. Spore's publisher EA has even inked a deal with Youtube to allow players to easily share movies of their more inspired beasties. Essentially, Spore's users are its developers, potentially making it the most viral video game ever (though no word yet on the kickbacks you might get for doing the developer's dirty work for them).

The PC game industry could certainly use the help. Month after month, NPD Group's Top 10 PC sales chart is littered with versions of Blizzard's World of Warcraft and EA's best-selling Sims franchise. Occasionally one or two new entries break the cycle -- most recently, the massively multiplayer game Age of Conan -- but compared to the fertile grounds of the home consoles and their Halos, Guitar Heroes, Grand Theft Autos and Metal Gear Solids, the retail PC landscape is a barren wasteland of ports and misfires.

With its high pedigree and unique twists, Spore could be the game to change all that when it ships in September. Between now and then, EA will have to figure out a way to sell its massive Sims user-base on Spore's complex gameplay styles. The game's epic scope is definitely intimidating -- if you're not well-versed in games like SimCity and Civilization, chances are you'll be a little put off by the later evolutionary stages. For now, though, you can get a taste of Spore's style by checking out the Creature Creator.

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