By Brad Cook

Billions of years ago, as Carl Sagan might have said, there lived a spore. It ventured forth to make a meal of smaller creatures while avoiding bigger ones. As time went on, this organism changed — it evolved, adding, perhaps, scales to help ward off attacks, a mandible for chomping foes, and a tail that aided in escaping from scary situations. It traveled through the sea, eventually taking up residence in a tide pool, where it bided its time until the moment was right to take that first momentous step onto land.

Welcome to SPORE Origins. Based on the first stage of Will Wright’s evolutionary epic, SPORE, the game places you in control of a spore that makes its way through 18 levels of prehistoric predators and prey. Eat smaller organisms to replenish lost health, growing larger in the process, and fill your evolution meter. Look for symbiotes that help you survive by making you faster, giving you a shield against attacks, or allowing you to poison other creatures. Modify your parts between levels with the creature editor.

When your evolution meter tops out, you move to the next level, where the challenge becomes more difficult. You might have to avoid pieces of ice that trap you until you spin the click wheel to break free. Or perhaps you’ll need to navigate murky waters where light is minimal and nasty predators lurk around every corner. In level 15, you’ll need to max out your health meter so you’re large enough to chomp on a predator’s tail until you kill it, while level 18 requires you to entice aggressive fish into attacking much larger creatures and eventually killing them.

Spore vs. Spore

When you finish the game, you’ll have a spore that you can share online and even send into battle against other players’ creatures. Defeat as many opponents as you can to move up the leader board. If you’d rather keep the action on your iPod, you can import other spores into the game’s Arena mode and see if your creature can win the fight.

SPORE Origins also features two other modes. In Survival, your health doesn’t regenerate between levels, forcing you to use power-ups to help you last as long as possible. Aquarium plays music from your iPod while you watch creatures on the screen evolve and interact with each other; move the camera around for the best view.

Get ready to recreate millions of years of evolution, all in an afternoon.

The Power-Ups:

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Do you have questions regarding any of the iPod games available from the iTunes Store?

Go, Little Blue. Watch out for that nasty predator at your 1:00 position.

SPORE Origins also available separately for the iPhone/iPod touch.

Click to see price.

• Site: SPORE Origins
• Publisher: Apple Inc.
• Developer: Electronic Arts
• Genre: Simulation

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