5. Spore (PC) - Casual Gaming Corrupts, Casually
We still remember Spore relatively fondly. The amount of penis monsters of all shapes and sizes (but always penisy) that players spawned is awe inspiring. Claiming the planet in the name of the penis monsters, and exploring space...with penis monsters. It all was very exciting. In a way. But it was too simple and cutesy. That's no way to present a penis monster - unless it's ironic. It wasn't always like this. The game was more realistic and more in depth during the development stages. Will Wright says there were two camps of people on the Spore team; those that wanted to keep it sciencey (the awesome ones) and those who wanted to make it more Sims-esque, cutesy and simplistic (the awful ones). So, a lot more wide-eyed saccharine nonsense was added in, essentially an attempt to drive sales up by attracting the casual gamer. Two awesome sounding creature types were omitted from the game, also; those who make the sea their home and eventually live in kick-ass underwater cities, and flying creatures. Actual flying, not just flapping briefly. We hate to keep harping on about this, but flying and swimming gritty realistic penises? Come on, what could sell better than that? As it is, what we have is an adequate, relatively soulless, cutesy casual game with not nearly enough replay value to deem it awesome. In all fairness though, a company in such a precarious financial state as Maxis can't afford to take risks. Oh, wait...