Electronic Arts studio Maxis announced the release of the Spore Creature Creator today, the introductory application for the highly-anticipated Will Wright game, Spore , which is set to ship worldwide this September. The Creature Creator , available for both PC and Mac, is a stand-alone product and “creativity toy box” which lets players create their own unique creatures, bring them to life with entertaining animations and them share them online with friends around the world.

The full version of Spore Creature Creator is shipping to retail stores and will be available for $9.99 USD/CAD and is available online at www.spore.com. A free, trial version is also available online, featuring 25% of the creature-making parts from Spore . The game essentially gives players a jump start on their Spore experience, as creatures made in the Spore Creature Creator will be able to be imported into Spore when it releases this September.

Aside from allowing players to create creatures, set them to interesting animations and prepping them for the launch of Spore , the Spore Creature Creator will let them test out their creatures, snap pictures and make movies with them. Sharing pictures or videos with friends is as easy as the click of a button, and so is sharing your creature creations. Players can share their creatures with others by uploading them to the Sporepedia at www.spore.com, a vast online destination where players worldwide can search for and share their creature creations, comment on other players' designs, check out celebrity creature creations and more. Players can even upload their creature videos to YouTube from within the game, directly to the Spore YouTube Channel.

EA is really going all out with promotions for the game, even giving players the option to post their creatures to their blogs, make them an avatar for social networking sites, and even making it possible to upload creatures to www.zazzle.com/sporestore to turn them into custom coffee mugs, t-shirts, magnets, stickers and more. Spore Creature Creator is available for $9.99 and is rated E for Everyone. Spore is currently scheduled to release on September 5 ^th in Europe and September 7 ^th in North America and Asia for PC, Mac and Nintendo DS.

Secret Agent Clank available

Sony Computer Entertainment America (SCEA) announced the North American release of Secret Agent Clank today, exclusively for PSP. Developed by High Impact Games, Secret Agent Clank features a story that focuses on Clank as the central character, while still containing plenty of the recognizable Ratchet and Clank tongue-in-cheek humour. The game takes a lot of cues from classic spy movies, in an adventure that takes Clank to the far reaches of the galaxy, in an effort to prove Ratchet's innocence.

For the first time in the franchise's history, players now have the ability to play as four different characters during various portions of the game – Clank, Ratchet, Captain Qwark and the Gadgetbots – each with their own signature styles of gameplay and personal objectives. While Clank is on the hunt for information to prove Ratchet’s innocence, Ratchet is in prison fighting for survival against criminals which were put there by him. Meanwhile, Captain Qwark is one step behind Clank, arriving to locations and claiming credit for Clank’s successes with outlandish stories executed by the player.

“ Featuring exotic locales suitable for only the classiest of robotic spies, Clank’s adventure finds him snowboarding down a comet, engaged in a dance of death with the exotic Countess Lottbolts, competing in a high stakes card game, and discovering the foundry which produces all the bolts for the galaxy. Armed with high tech gadgetry, Clank must subdue enemies twice his size using an arsenal of upgradeable gadgets from cufflink bombs to a blowtorch briefcase.” Secret Agent Clank is available now on PSP for $39.99 USD/CAD and is rated E10+ for Everyone 10 and up.

Performance Coach

Electronic Arts' EA SPORTS Label announced the introduction of a new dynamic, personalized gameplay feature for Tiger Woods PGA TOUR 09 today, via Tiger Woods' personal coach, Hank Haney. The new Performance Coach feature will have Haney assist players as they hit the links, assessing your game in Power, Accuracy, Short Game and Putting. Players will also be given a skill level ranking for each of those four areas. With Tiger Woods PGA TOUR 09 players' skill levels are now dynamic, constantly adjusting throughout each round, just as it would during a real round of golf. Following each round, Haney will deliver customized feedback on a player’s performance. This feedback system allows all gamers, rookies or PGA TOUR pros, to compete and enjoy the game at any level. Tiger Woods PGA TOUR 09 is slated to release on Xbox 360, Playstation 2, Playstation 3, PSP and Wii on August 26 ^th . This game is not yet rated.

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