Spore Hero has full creature editor

EA's Sims studio chief Lucy Bradshaw has revealed some new details of the Spore spin-off for Wii, Spore Hero, in an MTV interview.

Although it won't have the galaxy-spanning scope of last year's PC game, Spore Hero will feature the full creature creator and procedural animation system of the original Spore, allowing players to create wildly varied creatures. The editing tools will translate to pointer control in the Wii game.

After that, Spore Hero will take the form of an expanded version of the PC game's Creature stage, with players taking direct control of a single creature in an RPG-style adventure. New creature parts will be associated with specific motion controls for the new actions they make possible.

"Your planet that you've lived on has had a catastrophic event and you're essentially plummeting to a new planet on the tail of a meteor," Bradshaw told MTV of the adventure.

"You arrive there and you start encountering new creatures. This is a new planet that you've got to make as your own. So you start in a series of quests and adventures in a kind of open world that you can take at your own pace. You start encountering other creatures and can interact with them in either combat or social [ways], but you can also do things on their behalf."

The theme of evolution hasn't been lost, with quests that help your own creature evolve, or that help direct the evolution of the other species on the planet. There will be more of an exploration element to the game, too.

The game hasn't been shown yet, but will definitely remain a Wii exclusive (apart from its DS companion piece, Spore Hero Arena). "It takes advantage of the controls explicitly. And even stylistically, when you see the game, you'll go, 'Oh yeah, that's definitely a Nintendo Wii game'," said Bradsaw.

Spore Hero is due out towards the end of this year.