What Sim games do you actually remember? Sure, we all know it was a big, diverse series throughout the 1980s and 1990s, but seriously: which ones do you remember? Maybe just the titles? Yes, thought so. After the initial mega success of Sim City, Maxis really ran into quality issues. None of the countless games they pushed out really struck a nerve with general audiences. Some became popular in small hardcore niches, but were just to clunky for mass appeal. Others were just too simplistic to be taken seriously. Apart from the safe Sim City 2000, the output of the 1990s was overall forgettable and in the second half of the decade, releases slowed down significantly. Just for designer Will Wright to have a triumphant comeback with this game, which quickly became the best-selling one of all time (at the time) and turned into a huge cash cow with its countless expansions. How did this happen?
Life simulation games have a special charm: On the one hand you go through your motions from day to day, on the other hand you want to escape it by having a go at the motions of someone else. So, you kind of ask yourself what it would be like to replace your daily routine with a more exciting one from somebody else. And that is the crucial point of the genre: Is the virtual life different enough to entertain you? Has it got enough distractions to offer, at least for a short while? For Space Jobs the answer is clearly no. Because although shows signs of some promising attempts, they get lost in a maze of advertisements, half-done ideas and programming bugs.
For children, the whole world does not have to end or be threatened to get scared. Often a bad dream or a noise in the dark is enough. In the children's vivid imagination, monsters arise from this, hiding under the bed and ambushing the child from there. MetaMorphosis made me feel transported into this bizarre world between sleeping and waking and between hoping and fearing.
From the beginning, the player himself is just an ugly spider-like creature on two insect legs. The levels are populated with completely similar-looking clones and an encounter is always hostile. Then the creatures try to stun each other immediately with a jump on the head or to decimate the valuable life energy with targeted spitting of poison. Such poisonous slime also drips from the ceiling of the caves in various places, which darkly and oppressively seem to swallow the player.