Attention gamers: If you’re looking forward to the taking a hands-on role with the forthcoming Spore, you’ve got work to do starting June 17.

That’s when Electronic Arts and Maxis plan to release the Spore Creature Creator, in both a free, downloadable demo version and a $9.99 retail version (or 9.99 euros, for buyers in much of Europe). The demo version will be available from Spore.com and also will be included with The SimCity, due to be released June 23.

The retail edition provides access to all the creature-making parts for Spore, while the demo version is limited to 25 percent of those parts. Gamers will be able to share their creations with friends, via routes including uploads to YouTube.

In Spore, a long-awaited game from Sims creator Wil Wright, gamers will get a taste of evolution, taking their characters from primordial existence to civilization. (Wright has set a high standard for success–The Sims recently logged its 100 millionth sale.) Besides the individual characters, Spore-ophiles will be able to establish tribes and conjure up buildings and vehicles, including UFOs.

The hands-on work of shaping and painting fantastical critters with Creature Creator won’t be just a preliminary exercise, to be abandoned when Spore arrives in September. Gamers will be able to import their creations into the retail version of the game.

Spore for the PC and the Mac is set to debut September 5 in Europe and then two days later in North America, and a version for the Nintendo DS is also due at that time. A version for the Nintendo Wii will come sometime later–it’s still in the “early prototyping phase,” according to the Spore FAQ.

KARACHI (Reuters) - It’s a busy night at the Prince cinema in the Pakistani city of Karachi with cars parked across the pavement outside and spilling onto a main street.

Movie fans have a rare treat. The Indian film “Race” is being screened.

Pakistan banned Indian films after going to war with its neighbor in 1965 but over the past few years, as relations between the nuclear-armed rivals have improved, authorities have been allowing a trickle of Indian films to be shown in cinemas.

That has delighted movie fans and cinema operators but Pakistani film producers fear a flood of Indian films could mean the end of the local film industry.

“The government must stop the imports. Do you want to make Lollywood a part of the history books?” said Saeed Rizvi, chairman of the Film Producers Association, referring to the Pakistani movie industry, dubbed “Lollywood” because it is based in the city of Lahore.

Pakistan’s film industry made about 30 films last year, most of them low-budget imitations of Bollywood fare. With a similar culture and virtually the same language, Pakistani films have been starved of a natural audience in India because of political differences.

At home, competition from Bollywood fare as well as the mediocrity of Pakistani films means that many Pakistanis opt to stay at home and watch Indian movies on pirated DVDs.

Cinemas have been struggling for years and many operators have given up and sold off their premises which have been converted into shopping centers or offices.

From about 750 cinemas nationwide in the 1970s, there are now 300. But Indian films are breathing life back into Pakistani cinemas.

India’s film industry, including its Mumbai-based “Bollywood” studios, produces about 1,000 films a year.

CASHING IN

Karachi cinema owner Qaiser Rafiq is screening “Taare Zameen Par,” which is about a boy with a learning disability and was expected to pull in the crowds.

“Look at Hollywood or Bollywood. About 35 percent of their population watch movies at cinemas. In Pakistan, the best movie so far has only attracted just 4 percent of our population,” Rafiq said.

Cinema operators are cashing in on the revival of interest in the cinema the Indian films have generated. Before screenings of Indian films began, a cinema ticket in Karachi cost 100 rupees ($1.55). Now it is 150 rupees ($2.35).

“Before the release of Indian films, a good Lollywood film would make about 700,000 in an average week. Now the best week for “Race” in a Lahore cinema made more than 2 million rupees,” said another cinema manager.

Pakistani film distributors also welcome the revival of cinemas.

“It’s a ground reality that Indian movies are very much liked in Pakistan,” said prominent film distributor Satish Anand.

“(But) we shouldn’t become dependent on Indian films. Our own industry needs to do better to compete with their rivals and our government should protect the industry,” he said.

Pakistan’s new culture minister, Khawaja Saad Rafique, said he had been meeting the censor board and film producers to work out a policy on films.

The government had to “decide between the profit of cinema owners and the future of Lollywood,” he said.

“We have to look into the issue very carefully. But one thing is sure, it cannot be one-way traffic,” Rafique told Reuters.

While Pakistani films are not officially banned in India, tense political relations and the poor quality of many Pakistani films has meant Indian distributors have shunned them.

But last month, for the first time in years, a Pakistani film opened in India. The film, “Khuda Kay Liye” (In The Name of God), is about Muslims in a post 9/11 world and deals with the rift between radical and liberal Islam, an issue that confronts India’s 140 million Muslims.

As Pakistan relaxes its ban on Indian films, Rafique said he wanted to see more Pakistani films screened in India.

“If we allow some Indian films into Pakistan, then they will also have to allow Pakistani movies there,” he said.

“I have asked for proposals to bring our films to a standard where they can compete with the Indian films. Then we will be in a better position to allow more Indian films, and of course, our movies would do better in India too.”

SEOUL (Reuters) - After exhausting just about every elf, dragon and knight featured in Western cultures, makers of popular online games are turning to ancient Asian history and war heroes for new inspiration.

Chief among their sources is “Romance of the Three Kingdoms,” an epic Chinese novel whose plots and characters are familiar to most Asians.

“Romance,” which long existed in oral form before it was put together in writing in the 14th century, covers a chaotic two-century period in ancient China marked by infighting between warlords following the fall of the Han Dynasty.

The story, full of dramatic and bloody episodes about ruthless ambition, military tactics, loyalty and betrayal, yielded numerous battle legends and war heroes that are still venerated by Asians.

It also makes for an ideal theme for movies and TV shows, with the latest being John Woo’s “Red Cliff,” to be released just before the Beijing Olympics.

While awareness of ancient Chinese history is still limited in the West, critical and popular hits such as the film “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” and last week’s Jackie Chan vehicle “Forbidden Kingdom” are preparing Western gamers for the idiosyncrasies of Asian-based games.

Japanese game developer Koei Co Ltd has pioneered games based on “Romance of the Three Kingdoms,” from PC games in floppy disk to brand new console versions running on Microsoft’s Xbox 360.

Its “Dynasty Warriors” series, featuring legendary characters from the novel combined with kung-fu style action, sold more than 15 million copies worldwide.

Now, makers of online games are trying to bring the well-known saga into multiplayer role-playing games. They say the novel provides all the materials needed, from characters to political landscape, to entertain online gamers for months of play.

“Romance” could re-energize an industry suffering from the lack of a major blockbuster game since “World of Warcraft” by Blizzard Entertainment Inc launched in 2004.

South Korean game developer Wemade Entertainment unveiled a multiplayer role-playing game, “Chang Chun,” last year. In it, characters mingle with people from real Chinese history and get involved in politics and battles. Gamers build their martial art skills, acquire weapons and armor, form clans and lead wars against each other.

Converting centuries-old texts into virtual reality, however, proved a tough task.

“It took more than four years of research into the novel’s contents, Chinese history, architecture, clothing and so on,” said Park Jung-soo, who leads Wemade’s development team. “All members of our team went on research trips to China.”

Gamers appreciate such efforts, saying details and historical facts are key attractions.

“Managing troops, food supply and other elements to win the war is very interesting. There’s also a whole system for government offices and rankings,” said an online user, who wanted to be identified by ID sbh8243.

“If you want to engage more, you can join the policy team and lead the country you’re in.”

“Warlord” by Neowiz Games takes a step further in its attempt to blend Western and Eastern war history. A gamer can choose among characters from different cultures, such as a Chinese general, a Japanese ninja or a magician knight from ancient Europe. As the game progresses, the gamer faces famous generals and warriors from history books.

Kim Jae-young, production manager at Neowiz Games, said developers at the firm combed through not only history books but artwork, prehistoric wall paintings and artifacts to rebuild the scenes from long-gone historic moments.

Analysts say well-made games based on “Romance” have the potential to become money-spinners, given the fast-growing gamer population in China. Wemade, which is offering a trial of “Chang Chun” in China, said it ranks among the most popular online games there.

“The Chinese online game market has yet to fully boom up,” said Shim Jun-bo, an analyst at CJ Investment & Securities.

“One day there will be a perfectly made ‘Romance of the Three Kingdoms‘ game from a major studio like Blizzard, and it will become an absolute blockbuster.”

The Microsoft – Sony battle is on, as gamers all over the world swarm to pre-order Grand Theft Auto IV, a franchise that is said to make history within its first weeks of availability. Statistics are none alike, as the PS3 version may lead in Australia or U.K. websites, but not on Amazon.com.

Grand Theft Auto IV has stimulated a tremendous interest all over the world, ranking both versions among the best sold titles, behind Nintendo’s Wii Fit or Mario Kart Wii – this is the case of Amazon.com, where the Xbox version ranked no. 4, while the PS3 version ranked sixth.

On the other hand, U.K. retailer Asda announced that its pre-orders of the PS3 version have outstripped the Xbox 360 demand: “Both titles have generated great interest on the Asda website, with strong pre-orders, and the PS3 version is selling three times that of 360, which is surprising and not in line with what we’d expect,� Asda’s head of games Duncan Cross told MCV.

Although many expect the PS3 sales to outrun the Xbox 360, HMV’s Tim Ellis told the same source: “Demand for both formats is high, but our 1,000 Xbox points offer generated a huge amount of interest.�

However, the dice haven’t been thrown yet. In Australia for example, the PS3 version pre-orders went ahead of the Xbox 360 ones, but figures could change at any point.

Canada has a special offer for GTA IV fans: All Best Buy retail shops that will begin selling the game as of next week will offer the first 100 people in each location (Bay and Dundas – Toronto, Burnaby – BC, Langley – BC, Edmonton South – AB, Heartland, Mississauga – ON) the chance to win one of the 5 Limited Edition Grand Theft Auto IV Xbox 360 consoles.

The Grand Theft Auto IV mania has begun, going as far as appearing on various torrent sites. The gaming site Kotaku revealed that the Xbox 360 pirated version of the game has already appeared in 6.32 GB version. The investigation on how this happened continues.

Grand Theft Auto IV will be officially released on April 29, after a delay from the original date, which was supposed to be 16 October, 2007. The Xbox version will offer extra content (downloadable episodes that are said to add up to 10 hours of game), thanks to a deal Microsoft managed to close with Rockstar. The two episodes will become available as of August 2008.

EMERYVILLE, California (AFP) - Computer buff Will Wright created a multi-billion-dollar franchise with “The Sims” video games that let people play at real life affairs such as dating, working and raising children.

Now from September, Wright will let people play god with his latest brainchild “Spore.”

“The big hook with ‘Spore’ is that practically the entire game is user created,” said Shane Satterfield, editor-in-chief at GameTrailers website. “‘Spore’ is really the first game that pretty much puts all the power in the hands of the player.”

Players start as microscopic life forms competing for survival in primordial ooze and work their way onto land, where they evolve into creatures that build civilizations and rocket into space.

“It is still probably the most interesting question for scientists and five-year-olds: What is life?” Wright said, giving AFP an advance peek at the game, which hits US and European markets in September.

“It starts out as single-cell organisms and then you are eventually flying around the galaxy exploring new worlds, meeting other creatures and creating federations.”

“Spore” is marked by Wright’s loves for biology, learning, science, and science fiction.

A microscope, a moon rover model and a necklace of magnetic nuggets are among the knickknacks in his office at Electronic Arts-owned Maxis in Emeryville, California.

“I see a lot of games with a science fiction back story, but that is different than having science as their DNA,” Wright said.

Players dictate how their animated characters evolve. Creatures can have scales, fins, wings, claws, extra appendages, additional eyes, or body parts in unexpected places.

The online game’s programming gives characters artificial intelligence and figures out how they should walk, laugh, dance, fight or do other things based on what they look like.

For example, a creature given fangs will be more hostile than one with teeth for grazing.

“How they play the game has a lot to do with how they evolve their character,” Write said. “My engineers have the tough job of figuring out how something will move before they get to see what it is.”

Creatures pass on virtual genes to their progeny and build civilizations with cities, governments and economies.

“It is more of a social experiment,” Wright said. “Science, economics, sociology, things like that are very fun to simulate in the computer.”

In order to avoid what Wright sees as “inconsistencies” in online games in which characters interact in common virtual worlds, “Spore” provides players personal universes with copies of planets and creatures made by others.

The game culminates with what Wright describes as a “toy galaxy” for players to explore.

“We want players excited about creative, free-form play,” Wright said. “Anyone can make the creative process part of the fun, much the way Lego is.”

With the release of the original “Sims” title in early 2000, Wright lured women and other “casual gamers” into a video game market long considered a bastion of “hardcore gamers,” mainly young men.

Electronic Arts announced this month it has sold more than 100 million copies of “The Sims“, the world’s best selling computer game.

As usual, The NPD Group has released its sales report about the video games industry. Nintendo’s little wonder, Wii, continues to lead the sales, with 721,000 units sold and the Japanese company has one more reason to celebrate, as its Super Smash Bros. Brawl is the best title in software sales with 2,700,000 copies sold.

Despite some predictions, Microsoft’s Xbox 360 outsold its main rival, PlayStation 3 and the company had an important lead in the software department, with four games in Top 10:

Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Vegas 2 with 752,300 units, Army of Two with 606,100 units, MLB 2K8 with 237,100 units and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare with 237,000 units.

As for Sony, its PlayStation 3 sold only 257,000 units. It seems like Sony’s weak portfolio of games keeps on hurting the hardware sales, with only one title, Army of Two, succeeding to make it into Top 10, with 224,900 units.

However, what can we expect in April? It’s obvious that a good game title can boost the sales, so let’s see what will be in the stores for each gaming platform.

For Xbox 360 and PS3 the main title in April will be Rockstar’s GTA IV, this year’s biggest launch in the gaming world. Nevertheless, my guess is that GTA IV, which is scheduled to be released on April 29, will rather boost the sales of Xbox 360, instead of those of PS3. Microsoft has already promised some exclusive GTA IV content for Xbox Live and the company is already working on some awareness campaigns.

But Sony has also another great title, its exclusive Gran Turismo 5 Prologue, which made its debut in the United States on April 17. The game is sold as a Blu Ray disc or as 2.2 GB download from PlayStation Network and is priced at $39,99.

GranTurismo, a franchise developed by the Japanese gaming company Polyphony Digital, is a real station in the PlayStation world. The initial game was the best-selling title for PlayStation and all the other games have had a tremendous success among the racing fans and not only.

So far, Gran Turismo franchise has sold 47 million units worldwide and it is considered that it helped PlayStation2 to sell 100 million units. It will be interesting to see how and if Gran Turismo boosts PS3 sales.

Nintendo is heading for another strong month, as the company is ready to unleash

Mario Kart Wii on April 27, a game that will be delivered together with a new accessory that will delight the gamers: Wii Wheel.

With a broadband hookup to Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection, players will be able to compete with up to 11 other drivers from around the world for racing dominance.

Mario Kart Wii is bringing 16 new courses, in addition to the 16 classic courses from previous Mario Kart games and it promises a lot of fun as the players will have the option to race with karts or motorbikes.

Anyway, Nintendo said that the Wii Wheel would be sold also as a separate accessory, so that everyone in the household could race with their own wheel.

As you can see every console has its own arguments to hope for better sales in April compared to March. But in fact, even with the GTA IV release, I find it hard to believe that the Xbox 360 will manage to match Wii sales, even though it will easily outsell PS3. In the software department, GTV IV on Xbox 360 will be surely the winner.

But, as nothing is official until the next month when we have another NPD report, let’s wait and see the GTA IV launch.