Two days ago I decided to temporarily thaw my freeze on spending and finally bought Sid Meier's Civilization: Beyond Earth. It's been out for a couple of months or so now but I'd hesitated buying it since the reviews were decidedly mixed with many reviewers saying they saw it as little more than a new skin on what's essentially Civ V.
I'd hoped to find out that they were wrong but unfortunately I agree. After about 8 hours of gameplay I feel quite disappointed. I spend $50 for what could have been done in a free mod to Civ V.
On the bright side, during my research into what the 4x strategy gaming community felt about the latest Civ iteration, I learned of another new 4x strategy game that's been recently released called Endless Legend. After a couple of rave recommends from gaming YouTubers I went and turned up the heat on that freeze a tad more and sprung another $35 to buy this. All I can say is wow!
Endless Legend is, albeit a fantasy setting rather than future sci-fi, what the new Civ game could have....nay...should have been. I've been playing it and haven't bothered with Beyond earth since.
Don't get me wrong, I won't boycott Civ:BE forever. It is pretty and the interface is oh-so familiar (since it's the same Civ engine and UI, but there are just some really bad problems with it.
First, it got really boring, really fast. Unlike Civ V, the factions have no soul like the historically-derived civilizations have and the map terrain is a bit crisper and certainly more colorful than Civ V but the hue is quite dark and the hex-hugging, straight-edged territorial borders do nothing for me.
Units, both human and alien, look great and have cool animations but, as stated before, this is done by many mods available for free for Civ V so if Civ:BE is just going to be graded on visuals, than it's a big failure since it's neither unique nor cost-effective for the Civ V fan.
But in contrast, Endless Legend is not just pretty, it's gorgeous.
Given, it's an entirely different game and a wholly different publisher so it did suffer from the "been there, done that" effect of Civ:BE so boredom was avoided, but it also seemed better balanced in the decisions it imposed upon the player. I don't feel like it's such a grind.
The different races in Endless Legend seem more fleshed out and have really significant differences from one another.
And the map and battle graphics are super exciting. It's very evocative of the CG faux-model stylings of the animated map sequence during the opening credits of the TV show "Game of Thrones." Fantastic castles and spires that gracefully and dramatically erupt from the flat map surface, as the chunky cliffs, springy foliage and blocky outcroppings all morph into 3-D around them is pure genius. Battles are set up in somewhat the reverse wherein the combatants from both sides position themselves as the 3-D map details subside and morph down into a flatter, more streamlined battleground arena. And all these effects done with such great use of that oh-so-popular photographic effect of tilt-shift focus.
I could go on and on about the differences between these two games but I do thinks it's sad that finally, after all these decades of Civ's hedgemony...
There's a new king on the throne, baby.
I'd hoped to find out that they were wrong but unfortunately I agree. After about 8 hours of gameplay I feel quite disappointed. I spend $50 for what could have been done in a free mod to Civ V.
On the bright side, during my research into what the 4x strategy gaming community felt about the latest Civ iteration, I learned of another new 4x strategy game that's been recently released called Endless Legend. After a couple of rave recommends from gaming YouTubers I went and turned up the heat on that freeze a tad more and sprung another $35 to buy this. All I can say is wow!
Endless Legend is, albeit a fantasy setting rather than future sci-fi, what the new Civ game could have....nay...should have been. I've been playing it and haven't bothered with Beyond earth since.
Don't get me wrong, I won't boycott Civ:BE forever. It is pretty and the interface is oh-so familiar (since it's the same Civ engine and UI, but there are just some really bad problems with it.
First, it got really boring, really fast. Unlike Civ V, the factions have no soul like the historically-derived civilizations have and the map terrain is a bit crisper and certainly more colorful than Civ V but the hue is quite dark and the hex-hugging, straight-edged territorial borders do nothing for me.
Units, both human and alien, look great and have cool animations but, as stated before, this is done by many mods available for free for Civ V so if Civ:BE is just going to be graded on visuals, than it's a big failure since it's neither unique nor cost-effective for the Civ V fan.
But in contrast, Endless Legend is not just pretty, it's gorgeous.
Given, it's an entirely different game and a wholly different publisher so it did suffer from the "been there, done that" effect of Civ:BE so boredom was avoided, but it also seemed better balanced in the decisions it imposed upon the player. I don't feel like it's such a grind.
The different races in Endless Legend seem more fleshed out and have really significant differences from one another.
And the map and battle graphics are super exciting. It's very evocative of the CG faux-model stylings of the animated map sequence during the opening credits of the TV show "Game of Thrones." Fantastic castles and spires that gracefully and dramatically erupt from the flat map surface, as the chunky cliffs, springy foliage and blocky outcroppings all morph into 3-D around them is pure genius. Battles are set up in somewhat the reverse wherein the combatants from both sides position themselves as the 3-D map details subside and morph down into a flatter, more streamlined battleground arena. And all these effects done with such great use of that oh-so-popular photographic effect of tilt-shift focus.
I could go on and on about the differences between these two games but I do thinks it's sad that finally, after all these decades of Civ's hedgemony...
There's a new king on the throne, baby.