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The latest instalment from the brain of Will Wright, the man behind the biggest selling computer game franchise of all time – is a single-player online game in which you develop a creature from its origins as a tiny cellular organism into a fully formed animal with limbs, markings and characteristics as you please, and adapt it to live and thrive on your planet. So essentially, it’s The Sims but you make an animal instead of people, and don’t spend the first three hours of gameplay buying furniture.

Spore should entertain any fans of simulation games, strategy games or even role-playing games, due to the extent to which you can customize your character. Alternatively, it might appeal to anyone seeking a way to kill the hours before Warhammer Online and Wrath of the Lich King come out later this year.

Ria Farrell

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I don’t usually go in for games like Condemned, but when a certain fast-talking critic began giving it praise (relatively speaking, of course), I was compelled to give it a go.
Dark and moody, Condemned (Monolith Productions) sets the player, an FBI agent named Ethan Thomas, on the trail of a raging loon serial killer, who seems intent on dragging poor Ethan through some of the scabbiest places imaginable.
Though he has more toys than Batman, for the most part of the game Ethan must get past the legions of raving hobos armed only with the sturdiest piece of pipe or two-by-four he can lay his hands on, which is one of the games chief gameplay elements. The melee combat in Condemned is very well crafted, with blows feeling visceral and realistic. The psychological aspect to the game is pretty decent too, which overall makes up for its rather lacklustre CSI snooping, and its somewhat incomplete plot.
If you’ve got some spare cash floating about and you fancy something a bit different for your system, this is definitely worth a go.

Nicholas Chapman

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