Civilisation ? Beyond Earth
When Civ V was released long term fans of the series were up in arms. I was right at their side in complete agreement, CIV V at release was a huge step back from IV and as expected all those neat gaps were filled in with DLC content which bumped the total games cost (if buying all packs new at release ) to a price of £60+ quid for the complete game. A game which only now after a few years stands shoulder to shoulder with its predecessor and fails to surpass it in any way (yeah it looks shiny and there is a pretence of tactics). As it turns out the CIV V discussion was won by apologists, people so happy for a new entry in the series they were willing to pay any price and ignore all genuine criticism. There is no pressure on Firaxis to make BE an expansive game with depth and detail, their fan base is ready and willing to accept anything they are selling and once again we are faced with a broken simplified CIV game.
**edit** Let me explain this properly, if the current version of CIV V on steam is called the ?complete edition? then the first version released is by the publishers own definition an ?incomplete edition?, you cannot argue with that logic.
From what I can tell BE is not a game, it is a framework for selling DLC, it has more gaps than my 6 year old niece?s smile and they all seem ripe and ready to have DLC shovelled into them. Now I know that while this is my opinion readers are tearing their hair out and accusing me of being a peasant and saying that publishers have a right to charge what they want and yes I agree to all of those things but I have a right to explain to would be consumers that they are literally throwing money down a hole by buying an incomplete vanilla version which they will need to patch with DLC rather than waiting for a complete version. If you are buying beyond earth at £30 retail expect to pay another £30 minimum before you have the complete game, I don?t think that is good value for money so BE loses squarely on that basis.
Now let?s discuss the game itself what it does right and what it does wrong. The first thing I want to talk about are the factions and how they make no impact on your game whatsoever, do you want leaders with personalities, faction specific bonuses that make an impact on your play style or faction specific unique units and buildings, tough luck they are all gone. Now I understand that their aim is to remove enforced play choices and open up every faction to being what the player makes it, unfortunately it fails completely, falls flat and every faction and game plays the same. The impact that this has on the AI is appalling because these start bonuses that used to shape the AI playstyle for enemy civs are gone and they all behave exactly the same, which is why I go back to the point I make about this being CIV simplified, without the ideological and personality differences you literally have the AI all racing for the same endgame and victory conditions.
So without personality how do you define your experience in this new world what makes your faction special, the answer is ideology. The ideology system boils down to 3 affinities Supremacy, Harmony and some other thing that doesn?t make damn all difference to the way the game plays. You choose your affinity by researching associated technologies but as all good Civ players know your first tech choices are made by necessity, what benefits me best in this location. So what effect will affinity have on your playthrough? It is what gives the limited personality to your Civ it effects your relationship with other civs and as you level up affinity it unlocks more advanced unit upgrades. So apart from small modifiers and a palette swap the units are functionally identical and your choices make little difference to the way you play the game.
I?m going to try and speed up a little here and get some of the bigger failings out of the way, firstly the AI still don?t know how to use the Hex system, diplomacy is laughable, espionage is utterly broken and overpowered, none of the Victory conditions require a massive investment or dedication so they all can be achieved with natural progress through the game, the alien life or barbarians are made redundant by a single early building and finally there is no endgame analysis (Yeah you aren?t supposed to write in lists but this is getting quite drawn out).
This is what I like to call the inverse shit sandwich; it would be entirely unfair to go through the entire review without mentioning the things I like about the game. The new orbital layer adds a really nice touch (although the extra layer does nothing but confuse combat AI), the new science tree I actually like, everything is right in front of you and it feels less restrictive than previous CIV games, you can literally branch out on your own scientific path. The new resources although palette swapped actually have some interesting properties and the building upgrade system and intertwined quest system gives a little depth back to a shallow game.
Now for all the things that are more than likely going to be added at a later game, corporations or religions will be released at some point, a major fix for diplomacy including options for vassalage, expanded unit rosters, scenarios and story related content so there will be at least two DLC releases to pump up BE and at that point it will probably be an awesome game.
Now if I had to score this game out of 10 in its current form it would be a less than a 5, mostly out of spite and partly because the game fails at the most important thing it has to do. The game fails to be strategy game and starts to become a city builder with optional combat and some exploration, it falls short of its predecessor, it falls short of its competitors such as endless legend. Perhaps most importantly for expectant Sid Meier fans it falls well short of Alpha Centauri really short if I am honest, I don?t have the energy left to give a third list a list of things that we have lost in space between 1999 and today.
My advice to anyone who wants to pick up Beyond Earth is to wait, in the meantime whilst Firaxis go back to their lairs and bang out the upgrades needed to make it the awesome game it will inevitably be go and get a copy of Alpha Centauri if you haven?t played it or give Endless Legend a go if you have, maybe even go play CIV V for a year or so.
When Civ V was released long term fans of the series were up in arms. I was right at their side in complete agreement, CIV V at release was a huge step back from IV and as expected all those neat gaps were filled in with DLC content which bumped the total games cost (if buying all packs new at release ) to a price of £60+ quid for the complete game. A game which only now after a few years stands shoulder to shoulder with its predecessor and fails to surpass it in any way (yeah it looks shiny and there is a pretence of tactics). As it turns out the CIV V discussion was won by apologists, people so happy for a new entry in the series they were willing to pay any price and ignore all genuine criticism. There is no pressure on Firaxis to make BE an expansive game with depth and detail, their fan base is ready and willing to accept anything they are selling and once again we are faced with a broken simplified CIV game.
**edit** Let me explain this properly, if the current version of CIV V on steam is called the ?complete edition? then the first version released is by the publishers own definition an ?incomplete edition?, you cannot argue with that logic.
From what I can tell BE is not a game, it is a framework for selling DLC, it has more gaps than my 6 year old niece?s smile and they all seem ripe and ready to have DLC shovelled into them. Now I know that while this is my opinion readers are tearing their hair out and accusing me of being a peasant and saying that publishers have a right to charge what they want and yes I agree to all of those things but I have a right to explain to would be consumers that they are literally throwing money down a hole by buying an incomplete vanilla version which they will need to patch with DLC rather than waiting for a complete version. If you are buying beyond earth at £30 retail expect to pay another £30 minimum before you have the complete game, I don?t think that is good value for money so BE loses squarely on that basis.
Now let?s discuss the game itself what it does right and what it does wrong. The first thing I want to talk about are the factions and how they make no impact on your game whatsoever, do you want leaders with personalities, faction specific bonuses that make an impact on your play style or faction specific unique units and buildings, tough luck they are all gone. Now I understand that their aim is to remove enforced play choices and open up every faction to being what the player makes it, unfortunately it fails completely, falls flat and every faction and game plays the same. The impact that this has on the AI is appalling because these start bonuses that used to shape the AI playstyle for enemy civs are gone and they all behave exactly the same, which is why I go back to the point I make about this being CIV simplified, without the ideological and personality differences you literally have the AI all racing for the same endgame and victory conditions.
So without personality how do you define your experience in this new world what makes your faction special, the answer is ideology. The ideology system boils down to 3 affinities Supremacy, Harmony and some other thing that doesn?t make damn all difference to the way the game plays. You choose your affinity by researching associated technologies but as all good Civ players know your first tech choices are made by necessity, what benefits me best in this location. So what effect will affinity have on your playthrough? It is what gives the limited personality to your Civ it effects your relationship with other civs and as you level up affinity it unlocks more advanced unit upgrades. So apart from small modifiers and a palette swap the units are functionally identical and your choices make little difference to the way you play the game.
I?m going to try and speed up a little here and get some of the bigger failings out of the way, firstly the AI still don?t know how to use the Hex system, diplomacy is laughable, espionage is utterly broken and overpowered, none of the Victory conditions require a massive investment or dedication so they all can be achieved with natural progress through the game, the alien life or barbarians are made redundant by a single early building and finally there is no endgame analysis (Yeah you aren?t supposed to write in lists but this is getting quite drawn out).
This is what I like to call the inverse shit sandwich; it would be entirely unfair to go through the entire review without mentioning the things I like about the game. The new orbital layer adds a really nice touch (although the extra layer does nothing but confuse combat AI), the new science tree I actually like, everything is right in front of you and it feels less restrictive than previous CIV games, you can literally branch out on your own scientific path. The new resources although palette swapped actually have some interesting properties and the building upgrade system and intertwined quest system gives a little depth back to a shallow game.
Now for all the things that are more than likely going to be added at a later game, corporations or religions will be released at some point, a major fix for diplomacy including options for vassalage, expanded unit rosters, scenarios and story related content so there will be at least two DLC releases to pump up BE and at that point it will probably be an awesome game.
Now if I had to score this game out of 10 in its current form it would be a less than a 5, mostly out of spite and partly because the game fails at the most important thing it has to do. The game fails to be strategy game and starts to become a city builder with optional combat and some exploration, it falls short of its predecessor, it falls short of its competitors such as endless legend. Perhaps most importantly for expectant Sid Meier fans it falls well short of Alpha Centauri really short if I am honest, I don?t have the energy left to give a third list a list of things that we have lost in space between 1999 and today.
My advice to anyone who wants to pick up Beyond Earth is to wait, in the meantime whilst Firaxis go back to their lairs and bang out the upgrades needed to make it the awesome game it will inevitably be go and get a copy of Alpha Centauri if you haven?t played it or give Endless Legend a go if you have, maybe even go play CIV V for a year or so.
