Maxis, the company that has brought the joys of controlling virtual avatar’s lives to litterally millions, is releasing its newest foray into simulation gaming this week.

With The Sims and The Sims 2, Maxis introduced a whole world of highly customizable gameplay simple enough for casual audiences, but challenging and engaging enough for more serious gamers. You created a family, or roommates, or any number of disfucntional scenerios with people living together and released them into a house where you controlled every part of their lives. As you played, your “sims” would grow, learn, get jobs, play, make friends and eventually become highly successful.

This Sunday, Maxis, along with EA Games, will release Spore, a new simulation experience entirely. In Spore you control a species of animals in a quasi-evolutionary series of stages. You start as a cellular creature in the ocean and eventually develop into a space-fairing industrial society. At every point in the game, you control the look of your species and how they progress.

The Creature Creator tool in the game delivers a very complex, but easy to use drag and drop system to create your very own unique creatures. I’ve been playing around with the tool ever since it was released a while back (sans the actual game) and I absolutely love the open-endedness of the creation process. Here’s a couple of my creations displayed on YouTube: Cenatauren, Flocksum, and Skothma.

The game comes complete with online features enabling you to see the worlds and creatures others create and interacting with them.

I’m sure there will be plenty of surprises in Spore when it ships Sunday, September 7.

Until then, try out the Creature Creature free trial download yourself or browse litterally millions of creations online in the Sporepedia.

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