Has anyone played spore yet? I found it pretty cheap on ebay last week, and it does turn into a pretty good Space RPG/RTS/4X game all rolled into one.

It's all 3rd person, top down gaming, but you get to colonize planets, and do surveys, fight invasions and ecological disasters. Trade with other alien races and even build monoliths to help other per-space civs gain space-flight.

The universe is absolutely humongous, with millions of stars (or so I'm told), and other galactic sightseeing anomalies. You earn badges by performing duties and missions, which open up different technologies like weapons and terra-forming equipment, ect.

Once you get a few colonies built, they pretty much take care of themselves allowing you to explore the galaxy, without having to run back every few minutes to save them form invasions, ecological disasters and the like.

The AI is pretty good, and will expand very quickly, so you have to scout around first and grab a few good planets before you make first contact, or they will take them all, leaving you with the crap planets.

Overall, it is sorta like a 3D version of Stars!, MOO2 and Elite all rolled into one game.

The game in processor intensive, so if you don't have a good puter with a newer vid-card, don't waste your time, cause you'll be playing a slide-show!

I really didn't get into the first few stages, Cell - Creature - Tribal - Civilazation phases, but the spacefaring part (the last part of the game) is pretty kewl!