A game that Charles Darwin would have been proud of, Spore is definitely on it's way to your PC. Although only prematurely confirmed to also be ported to the Nintendo DS (with the designer showing interest of a PSP and Wii version), this life simulator masterpiece will soon take the idea of evolution to the next level of entertainment. These five video snippets (yes, snippets, they're that short), reveal the stages you must go through in the game to bring your one-celled organism into a fully fledged civilization.

After his successful creation of the Sims franchise (Sims City series, Sim Life, etc.), Will Wright has set out to make this his most ambitious simulation game yet. Months passed since the E3 Spore video revealing the game's graphics, mechanics and depth. We can't say much has improved, although action elements and even HW TnL-style war machine design has been revealed this time around.

Click on Full Article to view the other stages playable in Spore.

PopSci caught a bite with Spore creator Will Wright, the game developer responsible for rendering millions glued to their computer screens with their worldwide hit, The Sims series. His latest creation, due to ship this fall, took him seven years to finish. The game, showing its Sims roots, allows players to create worlds all the way from the microscopic up to the galactic scale.

Growing up, Will always thought that he was going to be an architect or an engineer. He was the sort of kid who "spent a lot of time building models, lots and lots of models, planes, tanks, ships, whatever." When he got his first computer, he realized that he could build more interesting models.

Building models is still his favorite pastime and the latest game he built still deals with creating and modeling; in particular, a game where players pilot the development of life from a single cell into a galactic empire. The creative aspect of the Wright games has always appealed to women. Will this game be more "masculine" than its predecessors, The Sims, which appealed more strongly to the female contingent?

The full article, along with the answer to the question above, awaits after the jump!

In a recent lecture at The University of the Arts Berlin, the father of modern ambient music, Brian Eno, announced that he will be scoring for the upcoming video game Spore.

Set for release in late 2007, the game is designed by Will Wright, and is currently being developed by Maxis. The game has been dubbed as "Massively Single-Player", and basically allows the player to play the part of creator where he will guide one civilization from the time that the citizens are mere single-celled organisms, to the time that they evolve into a modern, space-faring race.

As for Eno's involvement in the project, it has been noted that,

He was asked to do it, because the designers wanted sound that is just a procedural as the game itself, instead of the loops which are tied to certain stages or areas which we are used to experience in games.

"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.