Maxis, makers of The Sims, present the next big bang - SPORE. Create your unique creature and guide it on an epic journey through a universe of your own creations. Play any way you choose in the five evolutionary stages of Spore: Cell, Creature, Tribe, Civilization, and Space. How you play and what you do with your universe is entirely up to you. Spore gives you a variety of powerful yet easy-to-use creation tools so you can create every aspect of your universe: creatures, vehicles, buildings, and even starships. Features: *CREATE Your Universe from Microscopic to Macrocosmic-From tide pool amoebas to thriving civilizations to intergalactic starships, everything is in your hands. *EVOLVE Your Creature through Five Stages-It's survival of the funnest as your choices reverberate through generations and ultimately decide the fate of your civilization. *EXPLORE Other Players' Galaxies-Will your creature rule the universe, or will your beloved planet be blasted to smithereens by a superior alien race? *SHARE with the World-Everything you make is shared with other players and vice versa, providing tons of cool creatures to meet and new places to visit. PC System Requirements: *Hard Drive Space : 6 GB *Operating System : Windows XP/Vista *Processor : 2.0 GHz P4 processor or equivalent *RAM : 768 MB RAM *Video Card : A 128 MB Video Card, with support for Pixel Shader 2.0 MAC System Requirements: *Hard Drive Space : 4.7GB *Operating System : Mac OS X 10.5.3 Leopard or higher *Processor : Intel Core Duo Processor *RAM : 1024 MB RAM *Video Card : ATI X1600 or NVidia 7300 GT with 128 MB of Video RAM, or Intel Integrated GMA X3100

Maxis, makers of The Sims, present the next big bang - SPORE.

*** Requires the original SPORE to play *** SPORE Galactic Adventures is the first SPORE level expansion pack*. Through it PC gamers will experience deeper space stage gameplay than ever before. For the first time, players' spacefaring creatures will be able to explore new planets and earn rewards for completing challenging missions. This add-on allows players to beam down to planets, play mission-based adventures and even create their own customized adventures for the first time. In SPORE Galactic Adventures each adventure has a unique reward to upgrade a space creature with special accessories -- from an Energy Blade and Stunning Charm, to a Jump Jet and more. Players can fight their way to victory as a Warrior, dance with new friends as a Bard, and much more. Also, a new Adventure Creator will allow players to build and share online their own custom missions, providing almost endless gameplay possibilities. Key Features: Play Maxis-created missions all over the galaxy, featuring puzzle, combative, racing, and social gameplay styles. Level up your space captain and ans be rewarded by earning more than 30 powerful new accessories including Energy Blade, Acrobat Dance, Hover, Stunning Charm, Jump Jet. Create your own missions with the all-new Adventure Creator and then share then online. Play and rank an endless supply of adventures when you join the vibrant SPORE community. Terraform planets and for the first time place buildings, creatures, vehicles.

Darkspore is a new sci-fi Action-RPG game from Maxis that uses the award-winning Creature Editing technology from Spore. Game play is set in the aftermath of a scientific experiment gone disastrously wrong. After unstable “Exponential DNA escaped the lab, it created mutated hordes of Darkspore creatures that - under a mysterious leader called The Corruptor - overran the galaxy. After eons of hiding in hyper-sleep, your spaceship computer has awakened you with a message from a long dormant computer network - E-DNA has been stabilized. Use it to upgrade a collection of Genetic Heroes and fight back against the Darkspore. Build a collection of Genetic Heroes, each with their own unique abilities that can be used in combat. Switch between each of these heroes as you play through different levels and fight different Darkspore enemies. Upgrade your heroes by collecting parts that add stats to make your heroes more powerful. Customize your heroes and parts in nearly infinite ways. Organize your heroes into squads of three, and decide which squad has the best combination of heroes to defeat the enemies on each planet you encounter. Use “squad abilities to combine attacks from different heroes simultaneously. Play through a loot-driven campaign against the Darkspore in solo or co-op modes, as the game is designed for co-op from the ground up. Discover and unlock ancient Crogenitor obelisks containing bonus loot. Compete against other players in online PvP matches.

Create Your Universe from Microscopic to Macrocosmic, from tide pool amoebas to thriving civilizations to intergalactic starships, everything is in your hands.Manufacturer: Electronic Arts, IncManufacturer Part Number: 15352Manufacturer Website Address: Brand Name: EAProduct Name: SporeProduct Type: SoftwareSoftware Main Type: GameSoftware Sub Type: Simulation GameSoftware Name: SPOREFeatures: Evolve Your Creature through Five Phases: It's survival of the funnest as your choices reverberate through generations and ultimately decide the fate of your civilization. Explore Other Players' Galaxies: Will your creature rule the universe, or will your beloved planet be blasted to smithereens by a superior alien race. Share with the World: Everything you make is shared with other players and vice versa, providing tons of cool creatures to meet and cool places to visit. ESRB Rating: E10+ (Everyone 10 and older)PEGI Rating: Not ApplicableNetwork Compatible: YesRelease Date: 2008-09Platform Support: PCOperating System Support: WindowsCompatibility: Supported Video Cards: ATI Radeon series: 9500, 9600, 9800 X300, X600, X700, X800, X850 X1300, X1600, X1800, X1900, X1950 2400, 2600, 2900, 3650, 3850 NVIDIA GeForce series: FX 5900, FX 5950 6200, 6500, 6600, 6800, 7200, 7300, 7600, 7800, 7900, 7950 8400, 8500, 8600, 8800 Intel Extreme Graphics: GMA 950,

Deadly germs sprayed in shopping malls, bomb-lets spewing anthrax spores over battlefields, tiny vials of plague scattered in Times Square -- these are the poor man's hydrogen bombs, hideous weapons of mass destruction that can be made in a simple laboratory. In this groundbreaking work of investigative journalism, Judith Miller, Stephen Engelberg, and William Broad of "The New York Times" uncover the truth about biological weapons and show why bio-warfare and bio-terrorism are fast becoming our worst national nightmare. Among the startling revelations in "Germs: " How the CIA secretly built and tested a model of a Soviet-designed germ bomb, alarming some officials who felt the work pushed to the limits of what is permitted by the global treaty banning germ arms. How the Pentagon embarked on a secret effort to make a superbug. Details about the Soviet Union's massive hidden program to produce biological weapons, including new charges that germs were tested on humans. How Moscow's scientists made an untraceable germ that instructs the body to destroy itself. The Pentagon's chaotic efforts to improvise defenses against Iraq's biological weapons during the 1991 Persian Gulf War. How a religious cult in Oregon in the 1980s sickened hundreds of Americans in a bio-terrorism attack that the government played down to avoid panic and copycat strikes. Plans by the U.S. military in the 1960s to attack Cuba with germ weapons. "Germs" also shows how a small group of scientists and senior officials persuaded President Bill Clinton to launch a controversial multibillion-dollar program to detect a germ attack on U.S. soil and to aid its victims -- a program that, so far, isstruggling to provide real protection. Based on hundreds of interviews with scientists and senior officials, including President Clinton, as well as on recently declassified documents and on-site reporting from the former Soviet Union's sinister bio-weapons labs, "Germs" shows us bio-warriors past and present at work at their trade. There is the American scientist who devoted his professional life to perfecting biological weapons, and the Nobel laureate who helped pioneer the new biology of genetically modified germs and is now trying to stop its misuse. We meet former Soviet scientists who made enough plague, smallpox, and anthrax to kill everyone on Earth and whose expertise is now in great demand by terrorists, rogue states, and legitimate research labs alike. A frightening and unforgettable narrative of cutting-edge science and spycraft, "Germs" shows us why advances in biology and the spread of germ weapons expertise to such countries as Iran, Iraq, and North Korea could make germs the weapon of the twenty-first century.