Spore Creature Creator Goes 2-D

Last year's release of Spore did the near-impossible. It let players create cute, ugly or bizarre creatures with just a few clicks, and then take those little buggers into a game where they would evolve from into civilization makers and space conquerors. Now, Spore Creature Creator 2-D gives potential Spore players a free hands-on sample of how much fun it is to create... just in one less dimension.

Users can create a creature from 250 eyes, noses, limbs, feet and other evolutionary accessories along with altering their creature's colors. Once complete, the creature is easily saved as a PNG image file that you can use to decorate your desktop, Facebook page or merely save for later bragging rights.

To discover how much of a Spore Hero your creature might be, bringing it into the Creature Trainer pits your new best friend through training exercises where you'll use your mouse to manipulate mouth/beak, hands, feet and tail weapons against orbs, skulls and clay pots that come in a constant barrage. Completing each level requires a certain point score and you don't gain coins of tokens but it's well-produced and with the ability to use different parts to defend, there's some replay value.

Once you hone your fighter's heroic qualities, you can change its appearance or start again. While you're unable to upload the unique creatures to the Sporepedia network, you can import several creatures.