Creature Creator Release Jumpstarts Spore

Players eager to get going with the upcoming game can get started by building beasties with Spore Creature Creator.

The release of Electronic Arts’ highly anticipated Spore may still be months away, but the company got the hype wheel turning early on Tuesday with the release of Spore Creature Creator. Essentially the first part of the game, Creator will allow players to tweak and customize creatures usable in the full game in the dead time before it launches.

After playing around with different options for their creatures, players can take them on test drives, snap pictures, and make movies of them that can even be uploaded automatically to Spore channel on YouTube. The online Sporepedia will serve as a community for Spore players to share their creatures, and comment on others.

Unlike a free demo to wet appetites for the full version of Spore, Creature Creator will also turn a buck for EA. Players are able to dip their toe in the pool of creature creation for free with the trial version, but paying $9.99 for the full version will unlock four times more creature-creating goodies to play with. Gamers can download either version at the Spore Web site.

The full version of Spore will ship Sept. 5 in Europe and Sept. 7 in North America and Asia. It will be available for PC, Mac, Nintendo DS, and mobile phones.