There is a magical moment in Spore when you press a button to breathe life into the creature you have designed. His head comes forward, his arms slump and he begins to walk. Nothing in the gaming world compares with it.

God-simulators have been around for decades, but most give you a predetermined creature to train. In Spore, you get clay and you mould it. Everything you design is uploaded to a central server and can be distrubuted to anyone else. No game has been able to harness creativity in this way before.

Each part is based on one of Will Wright’s favourite games. The first section, in which you are a microbe in a drop of water, is like Pacman. When your creature drags itself on to dry land it is like a traditional action game. The city-making part is like Sim City and then it turns into a strategy game. There have been multipart games before, but none on such an ambitious scale.

My one worry is that it is going to be overwhelming in terms of how much power the player is given — you may have to put in a lot of effort before you see any reward.

Tim Edwards is deputy editor of PC Gamer magazine

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