Game reviews of "Spore Creature Creator," "Blast Works" and "Ticket to Ride"

Reviews of new electronic and computer games:

"Spore Creature Creator"

The "Spore Creature Creator" isn't actually a game. It's a teaser for the game "Spore," slated for a September release.

The creature creator allows players to build all sorts of critters and upload them; once the game is released, it will populate the player's personal "Spore" world with the creatures.

Players can shape a torso and then choose from a wide variety of arms, legs, hands, feet, flippers, mandibles and other bits and pieces, then arrange, stretch and pose them as desired to create a custom critter or 100 of them.

The creatures can be taken for a test drive to demonstrate their abilities, emotions and so on. It's really just a fancy sandbox, but it's inexpensive and serves as a primer for the full product.

"Spore Creature Creator" can be found in stores or ordered at Spore.com.

Publisher: Electronic Arts

System: PC and Mac

Price: $9.99

Age rating: Everyone

"Blast Works"

"Blast Works" is simple when viewed as an old-school scrolling shooter: There are no smart bombs, special weapons or other upgrades, just a ship and a gun and enemies to shoot.

The one game-play hook is that the player's aircraft can catch chunks of their destroyed enemies "Katamari"-style, using their weapons to attack and their bulk to absorb fire.

But "Blast Works" is more than a shooter; it's subtitled "Build, Trade, Destroy." It includes access to a powerful editor that lets players create their own ships, enemies, levels and even projectile behavior and attributes. User-created content can be uploaded and downloaded via official sites, and sent between friends.

The editor isn't simple, and "Blast Works" pre-designed levels aren't enough to recommend it, but players interested in building their own challenges should check this game out.

Publisher: Majesco

System: PC

Price: $39.99

Age rating: Everyone

"Ticket to Ride"

Another board game-turned-video game for Xbox Live Arcade, "Ticket to Ride" ably transfers the award-winning analog game into the digital realm. It's a fun, fast-paced and highly strategic game with nice presentation.

The goal is to link cities with rail lines. Points on the map are linked to each other with boxes colored red, blue, green, orange, white, black, magenta and gray.

Players claim lines and put down trains with drawn cards: Red through magenta lines require cards of like colors, or a combination of like colors and multihued locomotive cards. Gray lines can be claimed with any card color, though they can't be mixed and matched. Completing a line earns points, but incomplete lines' values are subtracted from a player's score at the end of the game.

The only place the adaptation loses its edge is in the local multiplayer mode. When everyone's playing in the same room on the same TV, there's no way for players to keep their hands secret.

Publisher: Playful Entertainment

System: Xbox 360 (Xbox Live Arcade download)

Price: $10 (800 Microsoft Points)

Age rating: Everyone