In yet another example of all the wonderful things you can do with Spore that don't involve playing a videogame, Electronic Arts has created a Flash-based front-end for the creature creator.

Spore Creature Creator 2-D features the full suite of more than 250 body parts, including limbs, eyes, feet, heads, and fun accessories like antlers and wings. Once players create their ultimate creature, they can play with them in the Spore Creature Trainer mini-game. Once complete, players can easily send their friends an e-card of their creature at www.spore2d.com.

Pretty nifty. Except that when I looked up a few of my favorite creatures, I was rudely greeted by the following message: "We're sorry but this creature cannot be imported to 2D at this time". EA seems to take a little creative license with their definition of "full suite". And once you've smushed your creature down to a 2D version of itself, there's not much to do beyond the minigame in which you drag your creature's limbs around to swat things. It doesn't even offer the promise of winning a free Playstation 3.