Darkspore open beta client now available for download

It's been far too long since you've played god with the genetic makeup of poor, defenseless cryptozoological monsters -- why not dip your toes into Maxis' dark, action-RPG followup to Spore, obviously titled Darkspore? The game recently entered open beta, allowing players to dungeon delve through the first few levels until the beta client goes kaput on April 22. The retail release is scheduled to follow on April 26.

You can download the beta client on our sister site Big Download, but you might want to check out the minimum system requirements posted after the jump before you spend all of that precious bandwidth. It's the currency of the future, you know? Like dirt and paper in Waterworld.

Darkspore system requirements:

• OS: Windows XP SP3/Vista SP2/Windows 7
• Processor: 3.0 GHz P4 or Intel® Core™ 2 Duo 2GHz or equivalent or faster
• Memory: 2 GB RAM
• Hard Disk Space: Up to 10 GB of hard drive space
• Video Card: 256 MB Video Card with support for Shader Model 3.0 containing these chipsets or better: NVIDIA GeForce 8800; ATI X1900; Intel HD Graphics
• DirectX: DirectX 9, DirectX 10 or DirectX 11 compatible video card
• Sound: DirectX compatible sound card