Oct 12, 2010

More Civ V

I've been focusing a lot on this game in my last few posts. It is a game I want to love but currently am not sure what I think about. The hours I've put into it over the last few weeks tell another story though, I'm badly hooked on it, despite what I would call pretty glaring flaws with the game. I know the AI has some fairly serious problems, I'm not entirely sold on how diplomacy is handled in the game and that the game is also bugged, producing very strange graphic anomalies or unexplainable slowdowns on my system.

That didn't stop me from getting up in the morning last weekend and starting a new game on it. What's worse I was not able, at all, to put the game away to do other more sensible things until I had finished the game some 12 hours later in the same day. Considering how hooked I've been on Civ IV, at least I was able to save the game and close it when I knew I had more important things to be doing.

I have however decided to let the game lie for a bit, in wait for patches to develop it better. Or for mods to come out that do the same job. Whichever comes first. Knowing myself I will then be all over it again.

I've read a lot of reviews for this game, and I noticed a lot of game journalists fell into the same trap as I did when I wrote my initial report. Civ V is sexy, it looks good, its easy to get into yet hard to master, everything is very slick.  So my review, just like so many others out there was mostly full of praise on how awesome everything is in this game. I can't help but think this is exactly the kind of response Firaxis was looking for when releasing this game. The game reviews mostly rate this game close to perfection. But in the 10-20-30 hours max a reviewer gets before he has to write his verdict, a lot of flaws that are not so apparent at first sight do not reveal themselves before the deadline.

I wont rehash for the 'th time the pros and cons about Civilization V, instead I will link to what I find the fairest game review I've read so far for it. So without more ado, here's Tom Chick's review on 1UP.com.

2 comments:

Blackie said...

Hey, with a game with such long lasting tradition and rnjoyable complexity as Civ there's no need to be apologetic about ranting continuously about it.
It only really reinforces the point that the game is definetly worthwhile and, which is always good in my book, has the potential to suck you in.
...sometimes to a point where after you spend some time playing it you go out to the RealWorld(tm) and start seeing hex grid superimposed on the ground (true story, ...uhm, a friend told me).

PS: Hi, Vads :)

Vads said...

Hey Black!

Haha I guess it won't be long until I see those RL hex grids