Spore Creature Creator!

Spore Creature Creator (Free Download) seems to fall into the unique category of “if it's not a game then what the hell is it?” A genre Maxis has long been the master of. And while forever grateful for Sim City and forgiving them for the Sims one has to wonder why they thought they could bamboozle us with Creature Creator.

This tittle is not a game lets just get that out of the way, it's an inconvenient truth better off exposed so let's shine the spotlight on the naked 800 pound gorilla dancing in the middle of the room! With this bit of trivia aside it becomes easier to accept it for what it is. A very clever marketing device and a great way to keep fan boys eager for the complete release slated for September.

Creature creator is essentially Mr. Potato Head and his bucket of parts revamped for the digital age. Your sole task is to create critters. These creatures will in turn be used to populate the worlds of gamers who opt to use shared content during the final release. There is no reason to buy this title if your not planning on buying the full game. And if you can hold out till then all the content of creature creator will be yours anyway since its just a part of the package. Besides the free version offers you all the features of the paid version the only difference is the amount of content available. The free version contains 25% of the arms, limbs, etc and the paid version has 100%, there is also a special version for HP customers planned which is also free but contains 50% of the content. These decisions where obviously made by the marketing department, and it's just enough to leave the intelligent gamer feeling jaded.

"Creature creator is essentially Mr. Potato Head and his bucket of parts"

In Creature Creator you start with a lump of dough similar to a potato. The blob has a spine which you can twist and contort into a shape of your choosing. From there you can add any one of 204 different parts in 6 categories. The actual process is quite elegant and the learning curve is slight . By simply dragging and dropping parts within minutes the most casual gamer can easily make something passable, within an hour or so you will be making critters like a pro. There are a few advanced options which let you customize your creations and make them unique. Even these are easy to use and if at any time you get lost or just don't have the love for paper enough to read the massive seven page manual, the spore guide is just a click away and it's actually quite comprehensive.

In The Begining God Created Lumps - Creature Creator Invites You To Fill In The Blanks

The creation process is fun and addicting but before you get too big of a hard on in anticipation of this Godlike free for all there are some limitations that you should be aware of. For starters it's not a free for all, apparently your a God on a budget. Every creation has a maximum amount of complexity which is estimated for you by a meter in the top right hand of the interface. Along with this there are DNA points for each limb and appendage you choose to add to your beasts. I'm quite confused on this particular aspect since there are no ways to gain more DNA points or spend all of the points provided with each creature. This is either poorly thought out or some sort of residual content from the future release that could not be removed for whatever reason.

Needless to say the cumulative effects of these nerfs limit the amount of creativity you are allowed, however it does insure that every creature you make will be playable in the final game. There is no sandbox mode which would allow the creation of the most intricate designs imaginable. You are limited to a finite number of combinations, while the range is very wide you are still boxed in. What would have been so disastrous about letting the users form 15 headed giant flying octopus creatures with great dance abilities? Certainly it would not make it into the game but it may have just expanded the life of the title a wee bit more. After all there is nothing you can do with your creatures except emote and dance! Perhaps the marketing department thought “those damn gamers have enough features to play with” and forced the developers to concentrate on YouTube integration instead.

This Cuddly Beast Enjoys Walks In The Park And Taking Multiple Bites At Once!

Lets talk about game play, wait we covered this all you can do is emote and dance! The amount of things you can do with your creations fall into 2 camps, making funny faces and doing silly dances. While amusing initially after hearing the same lame dance track for the nth time you will happily want to bash your speakers apart with an iron mallet. It would have been slightly more pleasant if they included at least two or three more audio tracks. For the most part your creature is incredibly lonely save for being able to spam the egg button which spawns several creature babies. These mini-me's mimic your grown up monster only they are just learning so their emotes and dancing abilities are not quite as good. And this just makes me feel all warm and fuzzy it's so cute, the only thing more satisfying is dismissing the little bastards and watching them explode into goop.

This has to be the most annoying thing about the title, your creatures are basically alone and bored. There are millions of creatures it could interact with but it just doesn't know how too. I would gladly pay a few dollars more to watch my psychotic creations beat the crap out of some of the cuddle monsters others in the community have constructed! Perhaps a break dancing contest or mating rituals (if your into that sort of thing.) You get the idea though, theres lots of potential for what it could have been.

Theres Nothing As Heart Warming As A Critter & It's Spawn Dancing In  A Circle Of Love

One of the best things going for this application is that you can play it in windowed mode. This means your not doomed to give it your full attention. You can quite easily surf the web or IM your pals while fiddling with your critter. Speaking of the Internet, you will absolutely want at least some form of access in order to take full advantage of what creator offers. Heres a fun fact for you at the time of this writing there are nearly 2 million creatures you can download and make dance for your entertainment. You can literally drag them from your browser and drop them into your game and watch them come to life instantly. This is pretty neat, each creature is simply a PNG file which contains extra data creator uses to render your creations. Never has there been so much free content available for immediate use before a game even ships! Too bad you cant surf for creatures directly in game, hopefully they remedy this situation for the complete spore game.

Among the applications other features are a series of media creation options. You can create movies and upload them directly to YouTube without ever leaving the game. Theres also an option to take snapshots of your creature and email your friends postcards. The later is created at the spore site and contains the obligatory spam urging your victim I mean friend to cough up money for the pre-order or download the creator. There is also an animated gif maker which churns out avatars for all you message board junkies. While these feature are thinly guised as community building tools, they are quite simply viral marketing tools directly integrated into the software. Which leads me to this point, if this is ad supported software why does it have a price tag at all? Consider the fact your tasked with creating content and then marketing this content to everyone you know while paying for the privilege. In addition your expected to bleed out another $50 for the final game to use the content which you already paid to create earlier. From a marketing perspective this software is revolutionary. And for those most anxious to play spore but can't wait then this will certainly fuel your imagination till the fall. However if you have no plans to buy the complete game and are just a little curious save your coin and download the free trial!

Record Videos In Game And Upload Them Directly To YouTube Sweeet! (OR NOT!?)

Bugs
It is possible to create creatures that exceed max complexity by adding and removing parts constantly. Your creature will work fine but you will not be able to share it once it goes over till you correct the problem. There are also the occasional graphical anomalies for example if you attach a mouth in a certain way when it opens you will see the body part directly behind it ie a torso or a fin etc. This doesn't seem to be a bug but it's annoying just the same.

Snide Remarks
In the future game companies will outsource content creation and marketing to gamers however these gamers will pay a franchise fee for the privilege. They will toil tirelessly and be paid nothing in return, the company will then generously offer them a game for a premium price to use the content they have already slavishly created. Game designers will be constantly berated with questions such as “It's a great game but where are the viral marketing components?” The future is now, and you will like it that way!

Related Game Spot - Creature Creator Contest