I made the difficult decision of removing spore from my hard drive to make room for other games. Difficult, because I felt a twinge of guilt over trashing a game I had praised for nearly 2 years before it came out.

Why spore? Why did youturn out so bad?

It was one of those scenarios where the concept was far cooler than the final result. At any rate, I often wonder if the spore that was released was the one Will Wright really intended. Was he under pressure from a deadline? (the release date was pushed back so many times) was he forced to cut corners? Whatever the reasons, the game he delivered offered no replay value for me. The various stages of the game, cell, tribe, and civilization especially, felt increadibly hollow. There was no real "depth" or immersiveness. The stages felt akwardly repetitive and lacked variability from one to the next. It often boggles my mind that the implementation of "good, evil, neutral" pathways was the only enticement to go back and start all over.

The final supposed gem, or space stage, was an utter disappoinment too. Managing a growing empire was entirely impossible, especially with pirate attacks and biological disasters that could not be completely prevented or turned off.

I'll expand this post later, but these are just some initial thoughts.

Ugh