I broke down and bought Spore Origins for the iPhone. Let me introduce Spot, my proto-creature. This is his level 10 self, with four eyes, three spikey things and two newly acquired mouths to feed.

Let me start this brief review by saying I don’t game much. I tried Cro-Mag Rally on the iPhone, and found it difficult, at best, to control. I find Moonlight Mahjong, which doesn’t make any sudden moves, more my speed — though any serious gamer would call that dull. I like Moonlight because what I often want out of a game on the phone is a bridge to carry me over a few minutes of down time.

Spore demands a little more, but makes for a fun way to spend that time. In evolution mode, I bet most gamers would find it easy, but to me it’s just hard enough to challenge. I got stuck on level 8 for a few sessions, but managed to move on. To me, that mean’s I’ll probably get hours of play out of this game and have a real go of it as levels and difficulty progress. That’s not bad for the $7 sale price. I haven’t tried survival mode yet, but that sounds like more of a challenge. If so, it’ll just extend the life of this little game for me.

Between levels, players can tweak their creature by adding things like spikes and eyes that allow safer navigation of the ether or more effective hunting. The creature editor makes evolving fun, since every pinch and squish you put your creature through is punctuated by a noise that evokes the Pilsbury Dough Boy.

In all, I give Spore high marks for being accessible for a lame-gamer like myself (but not too easy), and for being beautiful in both graphics and implementation.

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