Spore is arguably one of the most eagerly anticipated games we’ve seen in a long time, and with the title hitting European shelves tomorrow and U.S. shelves on Monday, the hype is going into overdrive. So why is everyone so hung up on Spore?

A factor not to be ignored is the fact that the game itself is coming from Maxis, which gave us the astronomically popular "The Sims." Those who know nothing of Spore are looking forward to it based on the general assumption is that it’s going to be “sorta like the Sims.”

However, if you’ve been following all the excitement, you’ll already know what Spore is all about. The game focuses on the evolution of species. Players start off as a single-celled organism and progress through different levels of complex life forms which eventually leads them to an intelligent, social being with the ability to travel into outer space and interact with alien life forms. However, the storyline of the game isn’t what’s getting most people excited.

The game is based around a large amount of user generated content without having any simultaneous multiplayer gameplay. While your race will appear in other peoples’ games, there is no interaction or intertwining with other players or their games. Being the first game to combine such a wide scope of gameplay (in-game evolution involves five separate stages) with such a huge amount of user generated content, there’s a certain amount of risk involved but the potential for a huge pay-off.

Spore is essentially in a category of its own. When creating a game that is quite unlike anything else out there, or quite similar but with a couple of fairly substantial differences, it’s very difficult to have the finished product be absolutely perfect. A lot of the hype surrounding Spore is built around what Spore will mean for other games. There’s the potential for a nearly new genre of game, and while the impact it has will be notable, it won’t be anything compared to the impact associated with its successors.