Spore Origins out for iPod, iPhone version due this week

Spore Origins

has wriggled its way out to the iTunes store for the iPod. The game is a slimmed-down version of the early microbial stages in the upcoming PC game -- in the main game, you'll be able to take your little microbes up through the evolutionary ladder all the way up to space travel, but in the iPod game, you just guide a little cellular organism around in the primordial muck, eating what's smaller than you and running away from what's bigger.

We haven't played the iPod version, but the iPhone version, which we got a hands-on with at E3 earlier this year, is due out later this week, according to the game's creator, Will Wright. Both games pale in comparison to the creativity and polish that the full Spore game will offer -- running a creature around in the muck isn't nearly as fun as guiding it through the history of time itself, and unfortunately, as we were told at E3, online play and character transfer never made it into the final version, so the portable games have no relation to the full game at all.

So what you're left with is a little arcade game, which probably isn't actually worth the $5 it costs. There are, after all, better games out there for less.