Spore Complete

With its microscopic focus on procedurally-generated content and gameplay, Will Wright’s Spore promises nothing short of a genuine revolution in the way games are made. Ever since the CD-ROM boom, game development has too often been more about stuffing bloated content than writing elegant code; Spore will be Wright’s greatest effort yet to reverse that uncreative trend.

About the only thing wrong with this game is that it’s not out yet. It’s complete — but given the infinite gameplay permutations possible through its incredibly open-ended engine, compounded by the interactions of user-created content, Spore must be the hardest game in history to playtest. You’ll have to wait until next year to evolve your species. Spore will prove that the best gameplay comes from powerful algorithms coded in Silicon Valley, not expensive cutscenes produced in Hollywood.