Aesthetically speaking, the iPhone is a perfect match for Spore Origins: both are incredibly sexy. Complementing the iPhone's sleek black surface and wide screen are Spore's bright, vivid colors and crystal-clear sound effects. Though its games library is only just blossoming, Spore's gorgeous backdrops and beautifully animated characters will prove quite attractive for iPhone owners who desire their games to have a pretty face.

Spore Origins drives just as nicely as she looks -- more so, in fact. Bequeathing the screen's entire real estate to graphics instead of requiring interaction with the touch screen, players control their little spore by tilting the phone every which way. The controls are sensitive enough to allow for the slightest tilt to send the spore hurtling in that direction or squiggling slowly and cautiously; I never once had to tip the screen too far to see the action.

All that tilting and twisting is necessary to collect tiny organisms swimming throughout the playing field. Each gobbled critter adds a small boost to your DNA chain, located at the top of the screen, which must be filled to progress to the next stage. Munching several organisms in succession increases your combo meter - the higher the combo, the faster your DNA chain will fill. Because your spore is a hungry little guy, he'll automatically lunge when he nears an organism. One effective strategy is to search out a cluster of organisms and then dive right in, prompting your spore to lunge at everything within close proximity and rapidly increasing your combo count.

Because life can never be easy, your new pet won't be swimming alone through Spore's endless gameplay field. Enemies with elongated jaws and a single row of pointy teeth will hunt you, pursuing your spore as relentlessly as he does his organism snacks. We weren't able to find any way of combating this foe due to only playing a few stages of Spore Origins, so we were content following Jenny's famous advice to Forrest Gump: we ran. Swam, actually, but same difference.



The antagonists will leave you alone as long as you don't venture too near, but sometimes boldness can work in your favor. As you progress, bubbles filled with organisms will float into the playing field, and the only way to pop them is to push them into your sharp-toothed predator.

Completing certain levels unlocks new parts for your spore, which are applied using a downsized version of the Spore Creature Creator found in the full-featured PC version of the upcoming game. Customization options such as primary and secondary colors (my spore was a blue blob with red polka dots), different skeletons, a variety of fins for navigation, and more are made available, enabling players to create creatures that are almost as unique as those that will be seen in Spore for the PC.

While neither as pretty nor as wieldy as the iPhone version, Spore Origins on regular mobile phones is also quite fun to play. The premise is the same: collect organisms to fill your DNA chain, and customize your spore with the creature creator. The number pad and arrow keys are predictably used for movement, though are cramped due to the small, narrow nature of most typical mobile phones.

One interesting addition that may exist in the iPhone version (though I didn't see it) is the Arena mode, which allows players to pit their custom creatures against other players' spores.

Much like the DS version, Spore Origins is not meant as a substitution for the PC version of Spore. If you have a PC that can run Spore, get that version, of course. But Spore Origins is good at what it's meant to do: act as a diversion when you're away from PC and need a dose of evolution. Spore Origins will be available on September 7.