It was shit back then as well but the infuriating quality of it made it all the worthy as a challenge.
We also had SimLife which is still better than Spore, but more importantly I forgot to mention the Christ-like figure of my childhood that was
Designosaurus II. You could make your own fucking dinosaurs and you had to survive against hordes of mean bastards in the ancient wilderness as you searched for satellites or some shit. At the time it felt like the bloodiest thing ever when you got slashed to death by raptors. When you beat the game you even got to print out a certificate on the dot matrix printer, shit was so cash.