Spore has been the industry's most-anticipated title for at least a couple of years. When I first wrote about it, during E3 in 2005, in one of the very first extensive interviews with Wright about the game, I penned these words: "Next year, Electronic Arts will release Wright's next attempted masterpiece, Spore."

Clearly, Maxis didn't release the game in 2006, nor did it come out in 2007, when it was also planned for launch. There have been all kinds of reasons for the delays, but whatever happened in the past, the game is definitely looking good and I think I would be willing to put some money on EA making its September 7 deadline.

That means, of course, that finally, the world will get its hands on Spore, and we'll finally find out if the game is going to live up to the galactic expectations that have been put on it. And while I've not played nearly enough of it to say whether those expectations will be met, I think there's a pretty good chance.