Another title that should be appearing on store shelves is Creatures 2 - from the Learning Company and its Mindscape division - a sequel to the Pokemon-ish virtual life sim that came out in December 1996.

　　The Norns (Mindscape's name for the game's virtual creatures) sport 120 new facial expressions and an expanded vocabulary in this game. Mindscape says users will find that the creatures are smarter than they were in the original game. Cambridge, England's CyberLife Technology Ltd. developed the artificial life technology that brings the Norns to... er... artificial life.

　　The Norns inhabit a world twice the size of that featured in the original Creatures - Creatures 2's environment sports a virtual ecosystem with plants, cacti, insects, sea creatures, butterflies, fish, caterpillars, bees, and ants and is influenced by wind, temperature, clouds, and seasonal weather patterns. The Norns can play with such toys as a fishing rod, a dog, a water wheel, and even a volcano.

　　"The extraordinary demand we've seen for Creatures 2 proves that virtual pets are not a fad, rather a new category of entertainment software that is here to stay," says John Moore, president of Mindscape.

　　If that's true, then here's one idea for combining two hot new categories of entertainment software - how about a game where you raise virtual deer from the fawn stage then let them loose in the woods and try to track them down and shoot them?