"Some die-hard fans will play whatever the industry spits out, but others prefer not to waste their time." That's the challenge issued by SPIEGEL Online. Look at a shelf at a game store and what do you see? According to SPIEGEL Online, you'll see the ninth version of a football simulation or the hundredth FPS clone.

SPIEGEL believes that Will Wright's Spore is the kind of fresh, new, and innovative game that can resurrect the game industry from its "self-imposed afflictions." In Spore, Will Wright (The Sims and SimCity) wants you to play with evolution - against other players.

• Create life, then explore outer space. You start with an empty planet - and a set of easy-to-use editors - and you create everything - from single-celled life all the way to spacefaring beings. And when your planet's beings can reach outer space, you'll find planets designed by other players. Amazing! Ambitious!
• The central computer at Electronic Arts. Animals created by other players are stored in a central computer at Electronic Arts. These will be inserted into your world to create competition. It's survival of the fittest!
• Non-intimidating competition. The competition between you and other players isn't in real time. This means you don't have to be online all the time just so you can compete against some rich kid who's online all day. In Spore, the central computer at Electronic Arts will send you challenges created by other players, but it's based on your current level. Your evolving animals might encounter a new predator, or your space civilization might encounter a new race.

Spore should be released sometime in the summer of 2007. Judging by the positive reception this game has received so far, it's bound to be as big a hit as Will Wright's other games - if not bigger.