You might not know it, but Electronic Arts has a chink in its armour. You can call their switchboard and when someone answers, they will say, "Good afternoon/morning, Electronic Arts." You can then say, "Oh, hello, is that Electronic Arse?" Due to the limitations of Alexander Graham Bell's telephony device, the person on the other end will be none the wiser.

We hope this practice, now a tradition for almost seven years, was followed today when obtaining quotes from Electronic Arts regarding news breaking on SPOnG earlier this week, when nice guy geek overlord and one-time CIA target Will Wright stated, "We’re looking at all the platforms for Spore, because we’re thinking about Spore as a franchise, not as a PC game. We’re going to do the PC game first, but really, what we’re trying to launch is an entire franchise that will be all across platforms."

He continued, "It will probably take very different forms depending on the platforms. We might even pull out parts of the game – so you might be playing part of the game on a handheld platform, you might be playing the entire game but maybe more avatar-based on a console. The consoles are getting kind of different now – I think there’s a really interesting distinction between the Wii and the Xbox 360 and PS3. Something like the Wii offers a lot of interesting creative opportunities for the editors, with the controller."

Seems like more than basic planning to us. Not so to Electronic Arse [They'll probably notice it when it's written down - Ed] who today issued a statement, presumably from its 'arts'. "As a policy EA does not respond to rumors and speculation. We have stated from the beginning, Spore will be a PC launch and, while the compressibility of the content would make it easy to support on other platforms, we have only stated that at some point we will explore bringing the game to other platforms."

As to why EA would move so swiftly to make this claim we are unsure, though pushing as many people as possible towards the PC version, then reselling follow-up console versions, does stand out as a possible reason.

Stay tuned for the full Will Wright interview in the coming days on SPOnG. You can decide for yourself what this very nice chap makes of it all...

Age III X Pack Nearing Completion: I downloaded version #360 today and there will be many more versions yet to come, but the X pack team is approaching the finish line. The single player campaign is being tweaked. The voice acting has been completed. The manual and Quick Reference Card both have been finalized. The main game features are in place. Focus for the next few months will be on balance and polish.

...E3 Undergoing Changes: It was shocking to hear that E3 may no longer continue as the giant trade show it has been now for 12 years. The news that publishers were balking at the high costs for taking part versus what they see as their return has just recently been going around, but the owners of the show, the Entertainment Software Association, say they are working to created a more effective show. It will be interesting to see what this will be.

Technology Guardian: You are working on undoubtedly your most ambitious project - the PC game Spore, which you describe as "Sim Everything".

Will Wright: Yes, Spore has five distinct stages, and mixes games genres. In the first - which is essentially a tutorial - players must design a single-cell organism which is able to survive in the wild and evolve. In the second, players design a creature which must establish itself in the game world, and evolve until it achieves sentience. The next phase is a tribal one, in which your creatures struggle to establish a city, and in which the tools you give them and the architecture you design for them define their personality. The next stage documents their increasing sophistication, and involves creating vehicles. Until, finally, they achieve the ability to travel through space and colonise or interact with other planets.

Apart from mixing action-adventure, real-time strategy and space-simulation gameplay, Spore innovates in two areas. Its central database will suck up creatures, buildings, vehicles and planets created by players and redistribute them to other players, introducing the concept of user-generated content to the gaming mainstream. And it will be the first major game to sport a "procedural" animation engine, which ensures that the creatures you design, no matter how freaky, will move realistically.

Orcs are the most organized of all the neutral races. A full group, including a shaman, a chief, a squad of riders and regular warriors, is a formidable threat.

The orc chief is a very strong warrior who not only can throw around whole groups of enemies with a single blow of his giant axe, but also increases the strength of nearby warriors by two times. This is very dangerous considering that orcs have never been lacking in strength.