Disappointment

Whilst waiting for Will Wright's next masterpiece, The Sims 3, I thought I would have another look at his last effort, Spore.


I remember that I was very enthusiastic about the idea behind Spore. Creating your own species and taking it to world domination and beyond appealed to me. I waited patiently all those months (years?) between the game's original announcement and its eventual release. On release I took the day off work and rushed to my local games shop to grab my copy as soon as it opened (sad, or what?). I hurried home and breathlessly installed it. Unfortunately, my excitement soon turned to disappointment.

As we all now know, Spore was little more than a prettily-packaged series of minigames, lashed together under the pretence of modelling evolution. But this was not evolution, more of a God game. Instead of your actions determining how your creature turned out, you essentially had full control of how you created it. It wouldn't have been quite so bad if all of the minigames had been good, but they weren't. The 'Cell Stage' was little more than a 1970s 2D scrolling game, and as for the 'Civilization Stage', that was so ridiculously simple as to be a waste of time. I remember that in the only game I played, I did get to the 'Space Stage', which actually wasn't too bad, but by that time I couldn't be arsed getting to the end, and gave up.


None of this was helped by the fact that I couldn't get my game verified (despite contacting EA support), meaning that I couldn't come across user-created creatures in my games - a major selling feature of the title.

Well, I have just been back to Spore. My re-acquaintance didn't last long. I got through the 'Cell Stage', but quickly lost interest in the 'Creature Stage'. For any game to hold you, it needs to draw you in to suspend disbelief, but this just didn't. Perhaps my earlier experiences had put me off for good. I may give Spore another chance, but I doubt it.

Here's hoping that Will Wright returns to form with The Sims 3.