EA releasing Spore creature creator early

Yeah yeah, Spore's release date has finally been announced and people are really excited that it turned out not to be vaporware. In a handful of months we'll be happily building a civilization/war machine to decimate whole planets, or peacefully cohabitating if that's your bag. But god damn it I want to build weird aliens and I want to build them now! A huge part of the fun of Spore will be the mad science and creativity that goes into creature creation, and the announcement of a release date only serves to remind me that I can't do that now.

Thankfully, EA understands our torment, and following in the footsteps of Maxis' The Sims 2, has announced their plan to release a character creation only version of Spore prior to the full game's September release.  EA has yet to reveal a release date for this sweet sample of Spore ambrosia, or whether it will be released as a free download or sold as an individual game.  Hopefully they have the good sense to release this version as a free download (or as a giveaway for pre-order), but even if they don't it's highly unlikely the creature creation edition of Spore will just sit around on store shelves.

Complain about corporate greed and profiteering all you like, considering the torturous wait we've had to endure I'd gladly pay a nominal price for the character creation version of Spore, and I suspect many of my alien-hungry brethren would too.

[Via Ars Technica -- Thanks, Justin]