Making the world a better place is surely the aim of most right-minded individuals, but with Spore Creature Creator Will Wright has decided to opt against the usual concept of the known world - and indeed most games - by placing the creation of the world's inhabitants firmly in the hands of the player. And not only you, the player, but all the players everywhere!

You see, Spore isn't your conventional god game; the premise is far bigger in scope than anything since the flawed genius that was Black & White. Instead of simulating a city or a business, the object is to cultivate an entire life form, starting at the microscopic stage and then controlling the evolution of your amoeba into a moving, breathing animal. Once evolved enough, you can make it into any shape that suits your imagination, using a convenient Creature Creation workshop. From there you help your creations to evolve from dumb beasts into a fully functioning society and the game becomes a civilisation simulator where you build your empire towards launching into space, and from there... well, no-one is entirely sure, and Maxis are keeping tight-lipped on the particulars of much of the game.

To sate the overwhelming curiosity and anticipation that is currently flooding the gaming public, Maxis have taken the ingenious step of releasing to the public a cut down demo of the Creature Creator, letting you create a whole host of oddities to roam your landscape. While the demo only gives you the tools to make a basic carnivore and only a smidgen of the full range of possibilities, your imagination is still fairly free to run rampant with what is present. You begin with a blob, complete with a spine that can be positioned and stretched to suit your whim, then shaped and stretched into anything from an elephant's torso to the segments of an insect. As well as the basic body, arms and legs can be added, then eyes, ears, horns and spikes, along with an array of claws, paws, flippers and feet available to adorn any part of the creation. What's more, your finished creature can be saved, photographed and you can even take pictures that can be automatically uploaded to your Youtube account.

Given that within the first week that the Spore Creature Creator has been online there have been more than a million creations already uploaded onto the global database, it's fair to say that there's more than a little interest in Spore. What's more, as all of those creatures will be available for use in the full game, it's quite clear that this could grow to be something very big indeed.

Previewed by Graeme Strachan for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).