Spore is the creation of Will Wright, who made SimCity and The Sims.
In a way, he is a murderer. Let me explain why: I can remember many years ago when I was in High School in the early 90s, playing SimCity for hours on end. I can remember, many years ago, when I was just back from France, playing The Sims for hours on end. And I remember just a couple of years ago playing The Sims 2 for hours and hours and hours on end.
Now this time is hardly productive is it? Let's say I live to the age of 80, and by that time have spent 500 hours on Will Wright's games. Now, I have perhaps 2 hours a day of free time. So that's 250 days he has robbed me of. That's almost a year.
Steve Collis - would have lived to 90. Life cut short by brutal murderer Will Wright.
In a way, he is my benefactor. By providing me with a mentally stimulating, relaxing passtime he has helped me flourish during stressful periods of life. (Nothing like bossing some Sims around to satiate that ancient and fundamental need to maintain the preposterous schema that we have some measure of control).
ANYWAY! Will Wright has been working on 'Spore' for years and I've been looking forward to it. I played it a bit Thursday and Friday, and A LOT today. You get to control a cell, that evolves into an animal, then into a tribe, then a civilisation, and then to space.
Talk about CONTROL! You get to design everything!
When the spaceship designer screen came up (after I'd progressed that far, which took about 10 hours), a thought hit me: I WONDER IF I COULD DESIGN A BORG CUBE AS A SHIP!!!
You know the Borg? From Star Trek? Some of the best space villains in science fiction history!
I did make a ship, and then I used the video option to take footage of me flying about in it.
It is now exactly midnight on Saturday, and I feel a mixture of annoyance at Will Wright for once again hypnotising me, and a mixture of delight that after a few hours sleep I can play it again.
In the meantime, here is my Borg video. My favourite bit is just after the one-minute mark:
