Well I just bought a copy of SPORE, a game by EA Games. Its EPIC. Its title "A whole personal universe in a box". Well it is.
At first you begin as a cell that just crashed into a planet. (Via meteor) Then you start eating stuff. When you evolve far enough you get to go on land. THere you start customizing your creature with legs/wings/tails and many other stuff.
After this stage the game pretty much becomes a strategy. In the first strategy stage you take control of a tribe of your previously created creature (You can start a tribal stage with another one, made by someone else or EA games, without passing the previous stages) Your goal is to take over the lands around, either by killing other species or befriending them. After finishing tribal stage you become a city like nowdays' cities.
After civilization (City) stage you go into space stage. BUt I wont spoil it more.
Some screenies and videos:
(http://www.mtv.com/news/photos/g/games_spore_021408/spore_civ.jpg)
(http://cboye.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/spore_3.jpg)
(http://www.specialtygamer.com/features/images/sporegameplay.jpg)
(http://www.gamesbloggo.com/wp-content/uploads/spore07.jpg)
Spore Advanced Creature Creation (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRovPCiBBTw&feature=fvst#ws)