* Yes, But It’s All Bad News. *

The creature creator holds several surprises. All the standard parts are there, except for the spikes, but also the outlines of 12 other parts. You recognize most of them, they're the "upgrade" parts that were mostly cut from the final public version of SPORE, but some appear to be NEW...

The lack of spikes means you're in trouble. Spikes are one of the most important parts at this stage of the game, they let you attack and injure much larger creatures, which in turn let's you colect MORE parts. They also are useful for defense, which is important for survival. Without spikes you have no idea how you are going to gather the parts you need for advancement to the Creature Stage...

The other thing you discover is that just like swimming in the water this game is already in 3d. You look at the creature and can re-orient it in 3 Dimensions and add parts like the early creature design stage... Knowing that you have already pushed your creature almost into full on herbivore, you spend some of your points giving it a carnivorous mouth. You keep the filter mouth though, making it an omnivore.

Next you ditch some of the eyes, and pick up another flagielum, doubling your speed. After that, you go to the painting mode, and try to give your creation the fish scales pattern. However, you discover that it costs one point of DNA for that pattern, along with some others, which is very bizarre, so instead you pick one of the 'free' patterns.

All that done you go to name your creature, purely from **** of habit, and discover another interesting datum: your creature's name has the word "Cheating" appended to the front of it, and you cannot erase it...

Feeling penny wise but pound foolish you finalize your choices and move on. You've made your bed, now you must lie in it...