You know Spore, right? The upcoming computer game that involves the evolution from primordial life to a spacefaring species? Where you are free to create whatever life forms you like? Where the rest of the universe is populated by life forms created by other people on the internet? Of course you have. People have only been talking about this game for several years now.
Anyways, the game is coming out in September this year, but you can already download a free trial of the Creature Creator. Oh, look, I whipped up a creature that looks like the BASS logo. Dear God is it ugly. (below the fold)
I’m pretty sure that that’s not what Tiktaalik actually looked like…
Anyways, this clearly relates to how evolution is perceived by the public. I’m just saying that if, hypothetically, any club vice-presidents were looking for topics in the fall, this might be a good idea.
Contrary what they say, this is pretty obviously not actually evolution. For one thing, Spore has a clear direction towards complexity, which isn’t really how it works. But more obviously there’s a player controlling how the creatures change! I’m not the first one to say this, but if anything, the simulation more resembles Intelligent Design than evolution. Funny how this only happens in fiction. And, hey, it doesn’t necessarily make bad fiction–this game will probably be extremely successful, or so the hype tells me. We’ll see when it comes out.
Come to think of it, the Intelligent Design folks usually don’t consider the possibility that life was created by an entire internet-like community. Doesn’t it make more sense that way? Mosquitoes were obviously created by divine trolls.
I don’t think Spore tries in any way to be a serious game. Seriously, play it sometime, it’s completely irrelevant (my glorious alliance with the Sir Beakenstein Empire attests.)
When I wrote this, the game had not yet been released. However, I did end up playing it, and even wrote a review of sorts on my blog. I pretty much agree that it’s irrelevant.