1up.com review posted

[ZimbuTheMonkey]

I even loaded up the Demo and quit after 5 minutes because it looked like an alpha build where rivers were just blue lines pasted onto the landscape. The terrain looked really freaking bland and ugly as well.

So, in short, you would rather trust the word of a stranger than try something yourself.

You played for 5 minutes and quit because you didn't think the rivers were pretty enough?

Gimme a break. The game has problems, but not any that would reveal themselves in the first 5 MINUTES.

 

[AveiMil]

So, in short, you would rather trust the word of a stranger than try something yourself.

You played for 5 minutes and quit because you didn't think the rivers were pretty enough?

Gimme a break. The game has problems, but not any that would reveal themselves in the first 5 MINUTES.

I don't trust reviews to tell me much about a game in depth at all. At least not since the entire review scene gave Empire Total War close to a perfect score when it's (or was) clearly the most broken and useless game of all time if you look beyond your nose.

I don't blindly trust the word of this stranger, as you put it, but I don't think he's lying about the observations he's made about the game either. Do you? Is he just blatantly lying about all the problem he has mentioned and in truth everything's fine?

Secondly, that review is not the only source of information available, I've read other people's complaints and reviews and heard concerns from friends.

Thirdly, it's just a matter of looking at the history of Civilization IV and you soon realise that "OOPS! They did it again!". The game probably won't be very interresting until after the first expansion pack and after many patches.

Civilization 4 BTS with patches and PIG Mod is such an amazing game, definetly one of my all time favourites. I have to judge Civilization 5 on those merits and as far as I can tell it fails to deliver.

 

[Mivo]

I agree with a lot of what he's saying but I think C is a tad harsh. That AI business really can be fixed it's just going to take some work from Firaxis and a patch or three.

It is important to score games the way they come out of the box. The product that customers pay for, not the game it "may" turn into. The "C" is appropriate and I wish more commercial reviewers had the courage and credibility to give "what is" scores rather than misleading the readers by focusing on the fluff and the potential.

Mentioning the potential is of course important as well. Giving it so much importance that a game with a sub-standard AI, in a genre where the AI is crucial (Civ is not a typical MP title, nor does it have a strong MP audience - and even MP is lacking, i.e. no save feature), is rated highly, however, leads to a score that doesn't really describe the game that the customer actually buys and plays "right now".

Until the day I can buy a game with the "potential to pay for it in the future" (i.e. by having a job), I'm mostly concerned with what a game delivers right now. (This is different for independent developers, but Firaxis/2k do not have a good record of delivering patches quickly. Their level of communication post-release isn't stellar. Companies like Stardock do.)

 

[Kashim]

Mentioning the potential is of course important as well. Giving it so much importance that a game with a sub-standard AI, in a genre where the AI is crucial (Civ is not a typical MP title, nor does it have a strong MP audience - and even MP is lacking, i.e. no save feature), is rated highly, however, leads to a score that doesn't really describe the game that the customer actually buys and plays "right now".

Actually the AI is the least important consideration regarding CIV V because it's fully in line with the genre standard which is obviously quite bad.
The Galactic Civilizations series is the one of the few with a barely competent AI while the rest is generally in the braindead territory. Don't expect miracles from the patch regarding this matter because, aside from some corrections in the calculations, it can't be fixed, not in a computer game and not without a supercomputer.
Honestly all boils down to the CIV IV vs CIV V argument and for that matter i have seen more interesting opinions on this forums than in the quoted review.

 

[abso]

there are no governments in civ5?

and really, you can't see other civs diplomatic ties & political or tech decisions?

is that true what the reviewer says?

 

[Takeda]

there are no governments in civ5?

and really, you can't see other civs diplomatic ties & political or tech decisions?

is that true what the reviewer says?

sadly yes

Overall, I'm in enthusiastic support of most of the changes made since Civ IV, but diplomacy just has me scratching my head. Why can't I see: who's allied with who, who likes/hates who, who's at war with who, TRADE MAPS, or see the social policies employed by other Civs? As is, diplomacy is just one big black hole.

I seriously hope some of this stuff changes as patches start to come our way

 

[Mivo]

Why can't I see: who's allied with who, who likes/hates who, who's at war with who, TRADE MAPS, or see the social policies employed by other Civs?

Lack of espionage?

 

[bernlin2000]

I'm lost all respect for 1up.com for letting this review get posted: he bases his score off of CivIV, not gaming in general, and even then a C is just pure BS. He goes off on social policies not properly reflecting the concept of tough decisions, but having already played the game I know that they're a fun aspect, and do involve making choices, including deciding whether to expand your empire (and thereby make it increasingly harder to acquire new policies). A critical review with really bad critical analysis, and some hubris thrown in (the "Chick Parabola"?, what a joke).

Isn't this the same guy who said Deus Ex was "90% bad"?

edit: Why yes, it is.

Even if he had given the game A+, I would have still said his review was crap, can't forget the worst review ever made for one of the greatest rpg-style FPS.

You can't change combat animations in game? What the hell???

I was only playing the demo for now, so I did not notice it yet. But seriously - they are already getting on my nerves sometimes. Until this point I thought C was a bit harsh, but for this alone he's right. That is so easy to fix and so annoying when it can't be done...

He mentioned in his review (and I believe he's right) that you can only disable the animations when you're setting up the game, in the advanced settings. The options menu, in general, leaves a lot to be desired: you can't change any video settings and there's no options for worker automation (I assume they can chop down trees and destroy whatever improvements they like, no documentation on it). The game right now feels like a really pretty wall: it's nice to look at and sorta play with (draw pictures on it?), but you have no idea what the inner workings are for so many systems, as you did in CivIV.

Thirdly, it's just a matter of looking at the history of Civilization IV and you soon realise that "OOPS! They did it again!". The game probably won't be very interresting until after the first expansion pack and after many patches.

Civilization 4 BTS with patches and PIG Mod is such an amazing game, definitely one of my all time favorites. I have to judge Civilization 5 on those merits and as far as I can tell it fails to deliver.

That's not fair to CivIV, though: vanilla CivIV was excellent, even with its problems (I have more gameplay problems with CiV, had more bug problems with CivIV). I love BTS + PIG mod as well, but if for whatever reason those two weren't available, I could still open up vanilla CivIV and still have a blast: BTS didn't mess with the core gameplay, it just improved on the edges. PIG just has a lot of wonderful extra information that I really want to see in CiV :-D. It would be awfully hard to buy new games if you only ever judged them on their previous iteration, with all of its expansion packs and patches installed.

 

[Lanstro]

He does make some valid points. I agree with his points on the social policies, and more importantly am concerned about the AI's stupidity in combat. I hope that the AI weaknesses can and will be ironed out, but I've seen other potentially good games destroyed by stupid AI which are never fixed despite several patches and the best efforts of modders (hello Empire total war).

That said, C seems pretty harsh. That's the kind of score you reserve for games like... um... Empire Total War.

 

[Mivo]

I'm lost all respect for 1up.com for letting this review get posted: he bases his score off of CivIV, not gaming in general, and even then a C is just pure BS.

No, he gave it a C because of the miserable AI, and the AI is the most important aspect in a strategy game with a heavy single-player focus -- at least to me (and obviously to him). I don't mind the eye candy, and I even welcome it, but that is not what makes a strategy game appealing to me. It's the AI, and I have little respect for reviewers who comment on the poor AI but still give a 90+ score. That's misleading. Tom Chick at least has the courage to let this affect the score.

Firaxis and 2k apparently chose to put more resources into the visuals and the Steam support than into the actual AI. GalCiv2 and (especially) AI War have had much lower budgets, are complex strategy games and yet still have superb AI. It's not "impossible". It just takes effort and competence.

I don't care for any particular review site, but I find that my taste in games, and my expectations of them, has pretty much always agreed with Tom Chick and Eurogamer.

Hopefully, the AI can be improved by modders or through patches. The game certainly has potential and it's exciting to get a new installment. I'd have bought it even if it had been much worse, just to support the franchise, but that doesn't change my priorities: the AI.

 

[Infiltrator]

Tom Chick gave Deus Ex a really low score back in the day.

Deus Ex?? One of the best games ever conceived?! He can take his reviews and shove them up his *@#$@$ #@$.

 

[Mivo]

Deus Ex?? One of the best games ever conceived?! He can take his reviews and shove them up his *@#$@$ #@$.

Mature response.

I thought Deus Ex was widely overrated and hyped. I didn't enjoy it and Chick's review expressed my view on the game accurately. Plenty of people liked it, and that's fine. Reviewing games isn't a popularity contest.

 

[Azazell]

Tom Chick is very average reviewers ;/

 

[hadberz]

His review is spot on IMO. I give Civ 5, C for the AI (AI is weak in all strategy games for the most part), A for graphics, sounds/music, and combat system. The game gets a F for the policy system. Why did they turn the whole civic/gov system into just another tech tree system. Maybe it can be modded down the road. I hope anyways.

 

[Lanstro]

I find it interesting you cite AI war as a game with a 'good' AI Mivo. That game's AI is designed to not 'fight back and win' as such but to be more of a 'director', left4dead style. All it does is send random waves at you, depending on the AI progress. It's competent at micromanging its units but it has no wider grand plan to actually beat the humans. That is, it is a solid tactical AI but has a nonexistent strategic plan. Any AI that is designed to actually win the game on a strategic level beats the AI war AI by default.

That said, Civ V's AI looks rather lacking even in its ability to micromanage its units. An AI with grand strategic plans to take over the world but is completely ineffectual at doing it due to its inability to use its units properly is still a shockingly bad AI (see, once again, Empire Total War).

 

[digitCruncher]

Interesting...

I sort of agree with Social Policies a little bit. It isn't a second tech tree by any stretch of the imagination, but removing the ability to SWITCH between social policies *is* a staple of Civ. I would think the game would be marginally improved if you could only adopt one social policy at a time (Tradition / Pious etc. etc.) and switched between them when you want to work on your capital / happiness / military. The only problem that would cause would mean that the culture victory condition would need to be changed.

AI is a serious problem, and Civ IV had to wait for the Better AI mod before it really started being competitive. Like Civ IV, however, you *can* brute force to victory with more units, and at higher difficulties the AI will (or should. I only have the demo ATM )

It seems biased towards the negative aspects of Civ V, but at least he backs up his claims with evidence that is remotely objective and verified.

 

[Kharum]

Ugh, why is it always, ALWAYS, when someone puts facts and objective observation in the table, so many people have hard time accepting it and are all butthurt. Perhaps this forum isn't the best example of that, there are -a lot- worse ones. Not to mention that thing called real life.

He uses rational, objective thinking, you who criticizes him as a reviewer act by feelings and denial. I know who I find more believable. I won't deny though, that he might, just might be bit over critical and demanding, but I don't think that's never a bad quality in a reviewer, but I don't find him to be.

/end of rant

 

[snoochems]

I'm not sure why so many here are defending Civ 5 like it was there own reputation depended on it.

It has some flaws. I'm not sure how you can't see that.

Usually with Civ, you can't drag me away from it. But I am actually bored with it enough that I'm going to bed at reasonable hours since unlocking it. And the fact that i'm not "just-one-more-turn'ing" till 3am, I can't really say that this is a proper Civ game. Something is wrong.

 

[ohioastronomy]

Actually the AI is the least important consideration regarding CIV V because it's fully in line with the genre standard which is obviously quite bad.
The Galactic Civilizations series is the one of the few with a barely competent AI while the rest is generally in the braindead territory. Don't expect miracles from the patch regarding this matter because, aside from some corrections in the calculations, it can't be fixed, not in a computer game and not without a supercomputer.
Honestly all boils down to the CIV IV vs CIV V argument and for that matter i have seen more interesting opinions on this forums than in the quoted review.

I'm afraid I have to disagree, in fact quite strongly. They changed the game in a way which makes it much, much harder to have a good AI. Galactic Civilizations is actually a good example; the AI is good because they designed a simple set of mechanics that a competent AI could handle. Their recent followup (Elemental) is a disaster because the game is complex and the AI can't do a decent job.

Unlike many of the other reviews, which read like press releases, the 1Up reviewer clearly took the time to play the game enough to become aware of its drawbacks. His complaints aren't first impressions complaints; they are observations that, basically, once you spend a bit of time playing you'll find that the computer is really bad at waging war. I've never seen a game developer able to fix that class of problem within a given design; it requires rethinking the game structure.

 

[apotheoser]

Elemental is a disaster for many reasons; the AI is the least of them. But that's a discussion for elsewhere. Suffice it to say I was happy to get even 75% of my money back and I'll never pre-order another Wardell game again.

As for for Chick's review, I think a C is defensible though I might have gone with a B-.

The entire Social Policy mechanism feels like a first-run design - it needs a few more rounds through the grinder. It NEEDS to link up to Diplomacy in some way. Civics and government have always been one of the most important ways to define your playstyle. Currently, the choices come too infrequently and too incrementally. Remember how governments and civics would be replaced during a "revolution" or "anarchy"? That's how social change works. There's gradual progress too, of course, but there are also sudden moments where things shift drastically. Playing through the history of an entire civilization without a single revolution feels BORING. Give me my revolutions back!

Finally, I should say I agree with the guy who mentioned the rivers. I looked at the rivers and I thought, "Wow, really? That looks worse than Civ 4". (My graphics are all set to medium or high, so it's not that.)