While Will Wright told the gaming community that, in no uncertain terms, Spore would be  directly responsible for the second coming of Christ, early scores of the game tell a different story: shitsux. In this day and age, a revolutionary landmark title like Spore can’t receive a metaciritc metascore below 85, or else humanity will be thrown into anarchy and chaos. At this point, its metascore is at a dangerous (and unbelievably terrible) 87.

Gamespot employee Somedude McPerson said stores have had a tough time selling the game: “while the pre-order turnout was great, sales dropped way down after the first reviews came out. Soon after that, we weren’t even allowed to carry the game anymore! Since some German douchebag game reviewers said it wasn’t a masterpiece, the FDA has decided Spore might be potentially harmful to consumers, and illegal to sell.” That’s right, Spore is only “pretty good,” which means that besides not being worth anyone’s time to play, it’s also so bad that it might kill you.

Will Wright could not be reached for comment on the issue because he’s currently crying himself to sleep.

Microsoft Releases Solitaire HD on XBLA

Following the recent trend of HD remakes, Microsoft has revealed that they are jumping into the fray from the development side. CEO Bill Gates made the announcement. “Truly, you are going to experience Solitaire in a way you never have before, with photo-realistic visuals you won’t find anywhere else,” he explained. “We’ve even brought back the original development team to work on the game to ensure the creative vision of the original is kept intact.”

However, the development process has been bumpy. Says Project Director Johnson Crawford, “we hadn’t worked on any games since the Windows 95 version of Solitaire, and to have the Unreal 3 engine suddenly dumped into our laps was quite a shock.” Fortunately the reported $50m budget helped the team achieve their vision. “Besides upping the graphical quality, we were able to implement a lot of things we didn’t have time for in the older builds. For example, now we have cards decorated with exciting images like rocketships, basketballs, and pandas. Thanks to the generous budget, this time around we were able to hire a guy who knows how to draw pandas. That just wasn’t possible thirteen years ago.”

In the future, we can expect Solitaire HD to be followed up by Hearts HD, and, fingers crossed, Minesweeper HD. “We’ve been thinking about the possibility of Minesweeper HD for a long time now,” says Gates, “but the revamped physics engine is only 10% complete at this time, and we don’t think the 360 hardware will be able to handle it, so you won’t be seeing that for about five more years.” In the meantime, I’ll be enjoying Solitaire HD in all its high-def retro-gaming splendor.

Nintendo Announces Wii Video Game

No, I think you misunderstand; the title of the game is Wii Video Game. Following the successful and innovative model of Wii Music at E3, which captivated audiences worldwide, Nintendo has decided to branch out into making other barely interactive, non-goal-based simulation games. In this case, it’s a video game simulator.

Shigeru Miyamoto explains: “I’ve noticed that video games are too challenging. In fact, I can’t even beat Super Mario Bros. any more [laughs]. So I thought it would be wonderful to capture the essence of a video game without having to worry about ‘doing things the right way.’ So now gamers can go through a game at their own pace without actually learning how to play games.” How does it work? The user just selects one of several game genres (all games are demos of N64 ports) and then begins pushing buttons and waving the wiimote. The more actions you perform, the farther along you get in the game!

“While you go at your own pace, the character onscreen will still go through the game perfectly. No anxiety about ‘being the best’ anymore,” Miyamoto continued. Someone asked, “isn’t this more of a tech demo than a game?” Without missing a beat, Miyamoto responded: “that’s why it’s more interesting than a video game [laughs].” And of course, everyone laughed with him. Truly, the genius hasn’t lost his touch.