10 TERRIBLE Games That Got Great Reviews
5. Spore
If you ever experience a period of intense self-doubt, remember that Spore has an 84 Metascore.
Maxis' life-sim/god game was hugely hyped in the lead-up to its eventual 2008 release, with designer Will Wright promising that players would be able to control the development of a species from a single cell organism to a spacefaring civilisation with unprecedented granularity.
The reviews certainly seemed to indicate that, after numerous delays, Maxis had more-or-less pulled the damn thing off. Yet in the weeks and months that followed Spore's release, players gradually came to admit that they'd basically been duped.
Spore's five stages of advancement effectively function as independent mini-games in their own right, yet don't coalesce in an even remotely satisfying fashion.
The expected nuance and detail just isn't there, with the repetitive gameplay of each stage ensuring that Spore fails to maintain interest all the way to the end.
The Creature Creator is fun, at least, but the nuts and bolts of the game are a superficial far cry from the more advanced project Wright promised at the outset.