Now, May the Force Be...Us; VIDEOGAMES: Will Wright's Spore lets players simulate the creation itself, starting from a single cell. What kind of deity would you be?

Publication: Newsweek

Publication Date: 23-MAY-05

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Byline: N'Gai Croal

At almost every stage of his brilliant career, video-game designer Will Wright has been able to turn to the seminal designers Charles and Ray Eames for inspiration. His urban-planning game Sim City drew on some of their ideas about architecture, while his interactive soap opera The Sims incorporated their thoughts on furniture. Yet for years another signature work by the legendary husband-and-wife team rattled around in Wright's head: the short 1977 film "Powers of Ten." Wright, 45, can't remember how old he was when he first saw it, but the movie--which zooms out by factors of 10 from a man lying in a Chicago park to the farthest reaches of the universe, then zooms back in, past the surface of his skin to the cellular...

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