Do Not Buy From Matrix Games

[The Madman]

To jump on the bandwagon, I'm 46. Been playing these sorts of games since I was 14 or so. I have never before heard them described as "4x".

There actually were a number of these released on consoles during the late 8 bit early 16 bit era. The Sega Genesis had a couple of titles. And I'm not sure how much it counts, but there is a version of Civilization out there for PS3.

I think I remember the old games you're talking about, for some reason the words 'Ogre' and 'Tactics' spring to mind though looking the words together brings up an old jrpg series which isn't what I'm thinking of. But really save for Civ Revolution (Which wasn't terribly good, not bad mind you but compared to the Civ Norm wasn't really up to par I found) I can't think of a single game on modern or even last generation consoles that revolved around grand-scale strategy and conquest.

Which is a shame I think. The popularity of titles like Advance Wars (A series I absolutely love!) and Valkyria Chronicles (Never played it and never will, anime ain't my thing, but still successful console strategy title) proves there's a market for strategy even if both of the above examples are more small scale.

And the 4x term popped up as a way of describing Masters of Orion and sorta stuck around after that to describe any sorts of similarly massive scope strategy games. It's a pretty niche genre but one that's almost guaranteed to catch my attention whenever it pops up.

 

[CrystalShadow]

To jump on the bandwagon, I'm 46. Been playing these sorts of games since I was 14 or so. I have never before heard them described as "4x".

There actually were a number of these released on consoles during the late 8 bit early 16 bit era. The Sega Genesis had a couple of titles. And I'm not sure how much it counts, but there is a version of Civilization out there for PS3.

I think I remember the old games you're talking about, for some reason the words 'Ogre' and 'Tactics' spring to mind though looking the words together brings up an old jrpg series which isn't what I'm thinking of. But really save for Civ Revolution (Which wasn't terribly good, not bad mind you but compared to the Civ Norm wasn't really up to par I found) I can't think of a single game on modern or even last generation consoles that revolved around grand-scale strategy and conquest.

Which is a shame I think. The popularity of titles like Advance Wars (A series I absolutely love!) and Valkyria Chronicles (Never played it and never will, anime ain't my thing, but still successful console strategy title) proves there's a market for strategy even if both of the above examples are more small scale.

And the 4x term popped up as a way of describing Masters of Orion and sorta stuck around after that to describe any sorts of similarly massive scope strategy games. It's a pretty niche genre but one that's almost guaranteed to catch my attention whenever it pops up.

I still remember playing Sim City on the Snes. That's not quite the same genre, but it's almost as unusual when you think about console games...
Yet that worked well enough.

Back in the day it was clearly thought of as being possible...

Actually, I've got a Wii game that fits the bill in principle, but it's a star trek game, and it's so horribly over-simplified it's almost an insult. (especially when you consider that Birth of the Federation exists, and is actually pretty good.)

I mean, you have the basic elements. You try and take over star systems, you build facilities and starbases in them, construct new starships... And research technology...

It's just... So horribly over-simplified that it doesn't do the concept justice in the slightest.

But... Bad or not, it is an example of a '4x' game on a console. (Not that this says much, because when I say bad, I mean, BAD.)