Spore
This game could have been called Evolution, because you start off as a single cell swimming in the water, grow into a land creature, then a tribe, a civilization and, finally, a galactic race - the five stages of the game. I guess it is called Spore instead because it sounds more hip than scientific. When the game starts, you see a meteorite hurtling through space and crash landing into a pool of water on a planet. Lo and behold, you are born. Your cell looks look a cross between an amoeba and a tadpole and you must choose between being a peace-loving herbivore and a greedy carnivore. I choose the latter and is rewarded with a large beak - a necessary body part for me to gobble up smaller cells. As you swim around, you must look for small fries while paddling away from the bigger ones. While you chomp away, you will chance upon new body parts including tails (which increase your swim speed), spikes (which hurt the unwelcome) and even a knob-like structure (which fire lightning at other cells). Yeah, it's a big-fish-eat-small-fish concept, which runs through the entire game's five stages. At each stage, there are several mini stages. For example, in the cell and creature stage, killing other critters gain you more life points and new DNA that lets you evolve into a more powerful species. To evolve, simply emit your mating call and a sort of non-pornographic alien intercourse will take place. The creature creation menu is then available for you to add new body parts to boost your social and combat skills. Or, you can focus on social skills, making allies and winning over other creatures and civilizations. But why would you want to sing, dance and charm when you can bite, charge and kill? The best part of the game is in the second part, when you get to drag and drop various parts to create your creatures, complete with a detailed paint palette. Don't be fooled by the cutesy creatures on the cover of the game box: It can be quite gory, with mini monstrosities eating their fresh kills, one red meat piece at a time. The game tapers off at stages three and four where it begins to resemble a real-time strategy (RTS) like Command And Conquer. This is when you erect buildings to generate an economy and churn out units to take over other cities. The RTS gameplay is, at best, amateurish. Fortunately, the final space-faring stage is better. This is when you explore planets and systems and find artifacts, make allies with other alien races and subjugate others. What is different about Spore is that as you play, your creations are automatically uploaded into the Spore server and are downloaded into the games of other players. Or, you can download your buddies' creations into your game, just for fun. Spore is not for hardcore gamers. However, if you like a game that you can quickly jump into and have a stab at playing creator, this could be it for you.