The Awful Spice World PlayStation Game Lives In My Brain Rent-Free

Things That Live In My Brain Rent-Free is a column where writers discuss the things they’ll never move past, and will happily bring up at parties and dinner gatherings for the rest of their lives. 

The Spice Girls were inescapable in the ‘90s. 

Not only did their music dominate the radio stations, but they had a movie, a bunch of merchandise, and tonnes of endorsement deals. But, perhaps the thing that best describes how widespread the Spice Girls were, was their PlayStation game. 

Introducing: Spice World

In 1998, PlayStation released Spice World, a music game that showcased the Spice Girls rehearsing, dancing, and performing with the help of the player.

On paper, this game was a success. The game sold out in the UK within months of the release date and it also brought in a new audience that hadn’t really been interested in PlayStation.

And so, the Spice Girls fanatic in me decided to whip out the ol’ PlayStation and play the game to hopefully bring back some nostalgic memories.

The only issue here, the game is awful. Like, it’s so bad, I’m surprised it was ever made. 

Let’s Get Into Why Spice World Was So Bad

Allow me to refresh your memory.

Essentially, to finish the game, the player had to remix one of the Spice Girls’ songs, then attend dance rehearsal and then record the dance for a tv performance. Sounds great in theory, but in reality, it was horrific. 

Starting In The Mixing Room

In the mixing room, the player was tasked with making their own remix to a Spice Girls song. You were given nine samples from one of their biggest hits.

The biggest issue here was that the samples were from all over the shop so you could never recreate the original song. Instead, you had to use nine clips, which made for an out-of-order mess of a “remix”. Like, it was literally impossible to make a song that didn’t sound like absolute shit. 

Not only this, but this game was so inherently not the Spice Girls. The DJ in this part of the game holds up this very inappropriate hand gesture while the Spice Girl you chose hops onto random symbols.

We’re not off to a great start ladies!

Then There’s The Dance Practice & Dance Record

Next up came the dancing portion of the game. Here, the player had to follow the prompts on screen to learn the different types of dance moves. Then, the player had to teach those dance moves to the rest of the Spice Girls. 

Here’s my issue with the game: no kid had the mental capacity to play this game as the creators intended. The task of memorising all of the dance steps was too difficult for anyone, which ultimately made for horrible choreography.

Who the fuck was memorising this shit?

And let’s not forget about that random disco choreographer who, again, simply does not exist in the Spice Girls universe outside of this game. 

Finally, We’re Performing

Here, you’re tasked with changing the camera angles of the TV performance.

This part of the game isn’t that bad. But, you have to keep in mind, the song that you made was shit and the dances you choreographed are shit. So, sure, this task is pretty simple, but you’re essentially the editor for this piece of shit performance. 

But, I will say, props must be given to the game developers for making the Spice Girls lip-sync the song when it was their lyric. That was a fun detail. 

Anyway, this game is an absolute mess. It was also released weeks after Geri left the band so all-in-all, it was a complete and utter failure.

Ultimately, because this game is so awful, it lives in my brain rent-free and for that, I will never forgive the Spice Girls.