Over at the official Spore website there's news that the third patch for the game is now available, offering twenty-four new limbs for your creatures. The limbs are intended to be used with the Creepy & Cute Parts Pack, which was released today. Imagine how much freakier your creatures will be now.

There's also a few patch fixes:

• Fix for esc key not bringing up Options in Galaxy Game Entry
• Fix for creator backgrounds appearing on small sporepedia cards
• Update to help keep achievements on the server in sync with achievements in the game

The patch is available for both PC and Mac.

After something like a 42-year development cycle and 100 gameplay presentations from Will Wright, Spore finally has a release date.

Via a very brief teaser video posted on the Spore website, EA has announced a confirmed release date of September 7th, 2008 for the PC, Mac, and Nintendo DS.

"The wait is almost over," Chief Designer Will Wright said in a press release. "We're in our final stages of testing and polish with Spore, and the team at Maxis can't wait to see the cosmos of content created by the community later this year."

The seven months until release gives plenty of time for conservative, religious, and parents groups to get up in arms about the "pro-evolution" content of the game.