The Avid Coder

I had high hopes for Spore. After Will Wright’s success with The Sims and The Sims 2 and their respective collosal lists of expansion packs one cannot be blamed for suspecting that Will Wright knows a thing or two about making games. So when Spore was announced I immediately started paying attention. As more and more details emerged I became ever more excited about the game. A game about evolution? Interesting. You can create and shape the course of your creatures’ evolution? Cool. The final phase will be a massive space-age where you can battle, ally and trade with other races? Wow, yes please. Then they announced what sounded like the gem that would complete this would-be crown of a game: your creations, those of your friends and every other player will be shared through an online service, free of charge. This means endless free content, every planet could be truly unique: populated with life created by countless individuals around the world! This is a game that sounds great on paper, and maybe it was great at some stage during its development as well. What we ended up with though is something that is only half of what we came to expect.

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