Rating: 
Summary: The science is obscure, but complex and complete.
Review: The engine in Creatures 3 (and the free addon/demo game Docking Station) for the creatures you must take care of is based on a complex system of biochemistry and neurology, and just about every major biological proccess in a real animal's body is accurately modeled. Although some, like respiration and, yes, elimination (good thing we don't see that, really ...) are not immediately appearant in the game, they are there. Creatures learn from their mistakes and other actions and use them in the future to better survive. C3 and DS also model genetics, and as creatures reproduce, they mutate and through selective breeding a player can create entirely new breeds of their creatures for their hardiness, personality or looks.
Rating: 
Summary: Few improvements over the original Creatures
Review: The original Creatures game represented a new class of computergame: real-time evolution. But Creatures had many problems: lots ofbugs, a lousy user interface, and a "flat" world where creatures can only move in one dimension at a time (a la the Mario Brothers) rather than in 2 or 3 dimensions (as with Diablo, Red Alert, Half-life, and most "modern" games).Unfortunately, Creatures 3 does little to remove the problems of the original. The game still limits your movements and still has a very clunky user interface. The creatures *are* smarter, with more genetic diversity. And the game doesn't seem as prone to crash. But this is a game that still needs a lot of work. The interface relies on a long-deprecated "mode-based" approach for the four most common commands, which are all mouse actions. In the "normal" mode, a left mouse click touches an item under the mouse. In "help" or "training" mode, a left mouse click causes the name of the item to be spoken. To get into "training" mode, you press the F1 key. To get back into "normal" mode, you must press F1 again (except for one or two exceptions...). For uncommon or infrequently used commands, this type of mode-switching might have been acceptable. But for commands you're using constantly, it's entirely inappropriate. It doesn't take a brain surgeon to see that Shift+Click, etc., would have been preferrable to this mode-based approach. --Switching between modes is another example of the annoying "one dimension at a time" thinking that is so deeply rooted in this game. The user interface also suffers in other ways: * Dialog boxes can't be moved, they can only be closed. * Important commands and actions are hidden in side pannels that can't be left exposed at all times. * Getting critical information on a norn requires opening a separate window, and even here the amount of information given is grossly inadequate. (You can't see if the norn is sick, tired, or hungry, for example.) * Entering the learning center, a key area, involves a context switch, and you have to let go of any norn you're taking there in order to invoke that switch: with the frequent result that the norn runs off, leaving you to learn the meaning of "frustrated" from the computer by yourself. * It's still easy to reward instead of punish, or vice versa, because these are both delivered by a left mouse click, where "reward" occurs if the mouse is over a creature's nose, and "punish" occurs over the creature's bootay. The problem is, norns tend to move quickly, and they can stand up, crouch, or lay down, making it quite easy to deliver a negative reinforcement when a positive reinforcement is desired. These problems make Creatures 3 appropriate only for die-hard fans. The rest of us who would like to play, but won't accept this kind of abuse, must wait for Creatures 4--and hope it's more than just another cosmetic upgrade.
Rating: 
Summary: Challenging, Fun, Frustrating, and Rewarding
Review: This game can be fun and frustrating. In Creatures 3 you are trying to successfully breed and take care of a population of "Norns" which are friendly creatures who live in a land in a huge spaceship. This is no easy task. There are way too many things you have too watch out for including "Grendels" (which are bad monsters that go straight for the kill, disease, drowning, misuse of machines, and starvation. Your Norns can die easily and under 30 seconds. Now, if you had one Norn to watch out for, he or she would be a piece of cake to breed, but in Creatures 3 you have many Norns to breed at one time and when they're all scattered about doing their own things, you can turn you're back on them for 30 seconds to go take care of another Norn and when you can come back, they might have died. That is the only extremely bad part of the program. It is a real challenge to take care of them all and that's why it's really rewarding when a Norn doesn't die until they get real old. Overall I encourage you to try this game somewhere else and then decide if you like it before you waste money on a game you don't like.
Rating:
Summary: Challenging, Fun, Frustrating, and Rewarding
Review: This game can be fun and frustrating. In Creatures 3 you are trying to successfully breed and take care of a population of "Norns" which are friendly creatures who live in a land in a huge spaceship. This is no easy task. There are way too many things you have too watch out for including "Grendels" (which are bad monsters that go straight for the kill, disease, drowning, misuse of machines, and starvation. Your Norns can die easily and under 30 seconds. Now, if you had one Norn to watch out for, he or she would be a piece of cake to breed, but in Creatures 3 you have many Norns to breed at one time and when they're all scattered about doing their own things, you can turn you're back on them for 30 seconds to go take care of another Norn and when you can come back, they might have died. That is the only extremely bad part of the program. It is a real challenge to take care of them all and that's why it's really rewarding when a Norn doesn't die until they get real old. Overall I encourage you to try this game somewhere else and then decide if you like it before you waste money on a game you don't like.
Rating: 
Summary: What a wonderful game!
Review: This game is amazing! It's like having your very own pet on the computer. And unlike Gigapets, you don't have to spend every waking moment taking care of them! The graphics are superb, and interacting with the Norns is extremely easy. Just watch out for the Grendels, nasty monsters that like to beat up Norns and eat their eggs. They'll also give your Norns diseases. Ettins are friendly, but they do take a lot of the machine agents back to the Ettin desert. There are many different things to do in this game, such as teaching your Norns, healing them when they're sick, breeding them, and even splicing them. You can also splice Ettins and Grendels. I reccomend this game for anyone who'd like a pet, even if they don't have the time for a real one.
Rating:
Summary: A really great game
Review: This game is really fun! In this game you adopt little creatures called norns. You have to teach them how to talk and take care of them. Eventully they will be old enough to have mate. I wouldn't recomend it to first time users that don't have another game of creatures because it would be really hard for you if you don't already have expirience with the norns. This game is very challenging.
Rating:
Summary: Creatures 3
Review: This game is very interesting. It's good for someone who likes to play God. It deals with genetics, mutation and breeding of your animals. It also deals with general care of a living thing. It is a very original game. It's also good if you don't have a pet. The only thing I would say is that the process of breeding takes too long (1 hour for animal to mature) and a while for mutations to show up.
Rating:
Summary: Best game in the Creatures series!
Review: This is one of the best games ever! If you are familiar with Creatures, Creatures 2, or Creatures Adventures, get this! It is the greatest Creatures game ever! There are five main "rooms" in all: the Norn terrarium, the bridge, the desert/Ettin terrarium, the aquatic (or "fish") terrarium, and the jungle/Grendle terrarium. Ettins will steal machinery, and Grendles will steal eggs, and kill Norns. Both can carry sicknesses. I suggest starting out with the Norn family. Also, the Grendle and Ettin eggs will not hatch if you place them in the Pirahna pond. There are two of each egg, and they will come out at different times. There are three types of Norns. Thwo have two names, one given by Cyberlife, and the other givin by thenewsreaders in alt.games.creatures . The names are: Civit/Cow (the reason is quite obvious), Bruin, adn Bengal/Tiger. My opinion, is that the Tiger Norns are the cutest, and hardiest. Some disadvantages are that the appelets are gone. It is harder to find out if your Norns are sick, inject them with helpful (or not so helpful, depending on how you play it) chemicals, and to veiw the chemicals in their bloodstream. The system requirements say at least 32 megs of RAM, and a 200mhz CPU, but I strongly suggest that you have at least 250mhz CPU and 64 megs of RAM. Otherwise, it will run very slowly with more than four Norns. Some little helpful bits about the game: ctrl + shift + w will take you to the wolfling control. There you can set the game to fast mode. F1 will bring up the "Helpful hand." Left click to teach a Norn a name to an object. Right click to get information on an object, such as interesting info on a robin, or the function of a peice of machinery. ctrl + shift + c will bring up the CAOS input box. CAOS means Creatures Agent Object Source. Here are examples of what you can do with it: Type "enum 2 24 4 attr 199 next endm" to make pickups pickupable, so you can take them to your Norns. Type "enum 2 24 1 attr 199 next endm" to make the stone of knowledge in the Grendle terrarium pickupable. Type "meta * 1 1 1" to go to a different room. Replace the * with numbers 0 to 9. Play around with that one, and you may find a few interesting places...
Rating:
Summary: Wow!!! Love this game!
Review: This is the best game ever! By the way, norns are WAY hardier than belived and with a watchfull eye they can thrive easily. Hint: If you're worried about grendels, just get 2 eggs before they hatch and put them in water! No more grendels! I think the medical pod is really cool, you can see if your norn is sick, and then you can help it. The machines are really cool too, you can connect them to make super machines to help you or your norns. Overall, this is a really cool game, and should get it!
Rating:
Summary: Amy`s Consumer Report
Review: Unless you invest considerable time reading the manual or online websites on how to play the game, you can accomplish nothing with this game. I spent a couple of hours trying to make sense of the game, and trying to see if I could understand the basic activities and goals, and ended up feeling very frustrated as I could figure out nothing. Absolutely nothing. Compare this to best-sellers like ... where even a novice player can enjoy the game at a basic level without having to study a manual. Yes, I know, Creatures 3 does not fit into your typical game genres, but that is *all the more reason* for having a good in-game help / guidance system for novice players. I should know - I have worked in the game industry for 9 years ...
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