
Maxis unveiled the first expansion pack for Spore last night, one that borrows a page or two from Star Trek as well as Adventure Construction Set. Spore Galactic Adventures will allow players to not only beam down to planets to explore strange, new worlds on foot, but they will be able to pursue dozens of Maxis-created adventures and stories.

The 2009 GameStooge Awards continue with the fourth part of the Awards – the Technical category that covers expansions, digital games, and the surprise games of 2009.
Winners:
Best Expansion: Fallout 3: Broken Steel
Best Digital Game (Original): Plants Vs. Zombies
Best Digital Game (Adaptation): Trials HD
Best Multiplayer: Halo 3: ODST
Best Game You Didn't Play: Dead Space Extraction
Best Surprise: Batman: Arkham Asylum

Stardock has released Impulse's Top 10 Sellers list for the week ending on January 9.

GP writes: "The sheer scale of Will Wright's vision for Spore was praiseworthy, even if the final product occasionally felt pinched and clipped.
In brief, Spore zoomed out from the microscopic to the telescopic in five phases as players evolved and nurtured a single celled organism representing a species into a space captain representing a galactic empire. Unfortunately, the first four phases played like a rambling prologue to the final galactic phase. But what it lacked in aspects of game-play it made up for in charm and creativity."