IGN claims Civ 5 "has no soul".

[Baleur]

Yet they gave it a 9.0 (outstanding)

Like a Mercedes then, they can be technical works of perfection, but still lack soul and passion.
One doesnt exclude the other.

 

[Abood]

Huh, reading the article I feel more like he was ripping on the entire civ franchise and those of us that have ever been into any of them. Hes obviously only into shoot em up games or first person rpgs and doesnt like things without a lot of excitement. If you could divide up the video game nerd world into cliques like high school, hed be one of the stupid football players...

That said, I agree with some of what he said but not for the same reasons why. If the same guy was rating any other civ game hed prolly have said the same things...

 

[eoc]

Because without a soul a Civilization game would merely be yet another bland and an empty strategy game that you play for a week and then throw away so that you can play something else instead.

I agree. I'd like to see I could play Civ5 for a long time, just as I've playing Civ4 for years.

 

[Psyringe]

this is the caustic op-ed thing that they run to keep up their indie cred (not that their actual review was any more reasoned, I imagine, given IGN's track record).

My thoughts exactly.

It's funny that the reviewer is criticizing Civ5's lack of things that I consider utterly superfluous for a good strategy game, fluff at best. Writing a 2-page review about the world's biggest turn based strategy franchise, and harping about the presentation while not addressing the AI at all, is ... well ... daring. Effectively, his criticism is even more shallow than the praise in the original 9.0 review was.

My impression is that the author would have liked a good strategy game even less, due to his focus on presentation over gameplay.

But well. It's IGN. I stopped taking them seriously long ago.

 

[pazmacats]

Here is a recent and a interesting article from IGN:

http://pc.ign.com/articles/112/1128430p1.html

This part interested me the most:

"It's a game without cinema, a logical skeleton without blood and flesh to give it human shape or empathy. It's history as a series of straight lines whose rate of ascension can be manipulated, but it leaves out the most interesting parts of irrationality and human failing. It's more a game and less a video game, one that could have existed as easily 1000 years ago as today. That can't be said of cinema, and the degree to which it resists enhancing itself with cinema's emotional agency reveals how aging and purposeless the mechanical system has become. Consider it a cultural defeat."

I agree and don't agree with many of the points he makes. I find it odd that he complains about all sorts of things that aren't actually that annoying, but barely mentions the horrible AI and the things that are currently harming the game the most.

Thoughts?

Oh! And just to make it clear this article was not written by the same ign guy who reviewed the actual game.

IGN is even worse a joke than Civ5. Can't think of any website that is more useless. Moo3 90%+ ?! Seriously, why do you even read IGN?

 

[Andvare]

Lame article. The author complained about all the things I enjoy about Civ and mentioned none of the things that make Civ 5 sucky. For goodness sake, he claims that Civ 5 is too complicated - when most people think it is too dumbed down.

It appears that this article is not about the flaws of Civ 5 in particular but about Civ-type games in general. The writer should just pick up a first-person shooter instead of complaining about complexity and the lack of immediate gratification in a turn-based strategy game.

No kidding:

Civilization V is an overwhelming game. It contains volumes of self-referential statistics and arcana, a game so systemically complicated it took me almost ten hours to finish my first full map.

I'd say that the writer of this article have no experience with strategy gaming at all.

He complains about it being a mathematical game. Seriously, WTF? It's a strategy game, not a shooter. Every strategy game is about managing yield (numbers) in some way. Even RTS games (which have no strategy elements in them at all) do this.

And then he complains about history not being presented:

It's a coincidence that I'd been reading Michael Axworthy's A History of Iran while playing Civilization V, and while it was exciting to see many of the ancient cities I'd been reading about turned into clickable symbols that I could manipulate, it likewise became apparent that the repeated story of a particular empire leading to chaos, treachery, and insurrection was lacking. Darius's choice of Xerxes to inherit his power marks the beginning of the decline of his empire, a recurring question that faced all the great leaders of the country and, in many cases, marked the end of all the great eras from the early Mazdaeans to the bungling Reza Shah's son. Without this random but inescapable equalizer, Civilization V is less about synthesizing history and more about perfecting history in a vacuum that excludes one of its biggest challenges: the seductive power of personality and the inability to pass it on even through blood relations.

1 out of 10. He has no idea of what a Civilization game is, has little to no grasp of what a strategy game is and what complex really means (I'd love to see a review of Victoria 2 from him, that would be hilarious).

That is one streamlined and organic article.

 

[pagh80]

The Civ V reviews have been very biased and poor. Many of them reeks of either sucking up to 2K or being paid to give good reviews.
It was very apparent in the first many reivews. After the game had been on the streets for a day, reviews was already spewing out and how can anyone make a proper review that fast?

There was a time where you could somewhat trust on what the reviews siad, but that doesnt seem to the the case anymore. Reading user opinions on forums like this seems much better.
It a shame though.

 

[Morningcalm]

It really is a shame, and unjustified. That said, it's understandable, as many games journalists depend on gaming companies for news/updates/exclusive plays, etc, and slapping a bad review on them might have consequences further down the line. I'd say the issue is really with game publishers rather than developers though--it's entirely possible many of Civ V's issues were due to a release deadline rather than because Firaxis sucked.

But there doesn't seem much proof of that at the moment. Just giving Shafer and Firaxis the benefit of the doubt, because I don't want to believe this product is the best they could have done. I really, really don't want to believe it.

 

[gunter]

This is IGN's way of appearing serious. Since obviously maintaining good relations with 2K was top priority when Civ5 debuted, hence the softball review. And having worked in games journalism before, I can tell you those PR departments have a lot of power. Journos are at their mercy for previews, inside scoops, free trips, freebies etc. and they NEVER disclose those to the people they report to. IGN is the worst because as a corporate entity there's probably more of an entertainment tonight style arrangement of reciprocity than your odd tech reviewer from a magazine who may be at the mercy of the PR department but the news division which they report to couldn't care less.

Their video review was a joke and the kid who reviewed it appear to not have played any Civ past Civ4, so he kept comparing it to the wrong things, and attributing things to Civ4 that was innovated much earlier.

But that's for another thread. IGN is the <snip> bin of games journalism and most gaming enthusiast avoid it like the plague.

It's our responsibility to tell Rupert Murdoch and News Corp we will not put up with this.

Moderator Action: Please don't swear on the forum.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

I am " peculiar " i know that but a pc-games reviewer site being prone to accept everything fed from the publisher ...... well..... that site must be closed immediately and condemned to refund thousands of dollars to the readers ( buyers ) .

Is this perhaps called " utopia project " ?

Anyway Civ V is a fair game but it definitely misses a soul, wonder movies missing is a clear example of " flatness " in terms of emotions.

 

[cr0ws]

That's because STEAM ate it's soul!

 

[Psyringe]

I'd say the issue is really with game publishers rather than developers though--it's entirely possible many of Civ V's issues were due to a release deadline rather than because Firaxis sucked.

But there doesn't seem much proof of that at the moment. Just giving Shafer and Firaxis the benefit of the doubt, because I don't want to believe this product is the best they could have done. I really, really don't want to believe it.

It's nigh impossible for a fansite to get hard proof that the publisher pushed the developer into releasing an unfinished product. Such claims are usually ignored/denied as long as the two work together, and only levied by the developer if they've fallen out with the publisher, in which case they aren't very reliable either because the developer has of course an interest in blaming any shortfalls of their recent product on publisher pressure.

There are however several signs that the game was indeed rushed: Bugs which a thorough beta-test would have revealed, lack of polish in general, presence of XML data for feature that were apparently designed but not implemented, then the fact that Take2 has financial trouble and that its fiscal year ends in October. All of this is speculation, nothing is hard proof, but taken together it's pretty convincing evidence. It still doesn't tell whether the developer botched up (e.g. in continually missing deadlines and not delivering the promised quality) or whether the publisher pushed them into committing to an impossible deal.

 

[ond_magiker]

My thoughts exactly.

It's funny that the reviewer is criticizing Civ5's lack of things that I consider utterly superfluous for a good strategy game, fluff at best. Writing a 2-page review about the world's biggest turn based strategy franchise, and harping about the presentation while not addressing the AI at all, is ... well ... daring. Effectively, his criticism is even more shallow than the praise in the original 9.0 review was.

My impression is that the author would have liked a good strategy game even less, due to his focus on presentation over gameplay.

But well. It's IGN. I stopped taking them seriously long ago.

Spot on.

The author of that utterly dull article wouldn't recognize strategy-game-soul if he was slapped in the head with it. As we all know, there has been loads of disappointment with Civ5 on this forum, but he barely mentioned any of the valid complaints.


Oh, and IGN sucks for giving God Hand 3/10, so there.

 

[DashieBaby87]

It just seems this the reviewer of this article has never played Civilization before. His complaints could be true for any game of the Civilization series. Is she or he really complaining about leaders not aging?

And as for Civilization being a sudden "math" game - what do they think Civ IV was? Sorry, but it's just my opinion that they had a Call of Duty player suddenly review turn-based strategy games. I agree that CiV could have been more polished and a much better game, but the "needs drama!!!" complaint makes me think of Call of Duty, and games like that.

&#9829;

 

[mihaifx]

Ah, no religion in the game, no soul

 

[Vellis]

What was that quote from Sid? Something to the effect of 90% of a game's story should be filled in by the player? I think the reviewer missed that part =p

The funny thing is I would agree that Civ V is lacking a soul compared to previous Civ's, but that's just because the completely irrational AI stops you from filling in that 90%. Somehow the author managed to hit the nail on the head for all the wrong reasons.

It's hard to tell a story when the actors insist on following one (psychotic) script.

 

[moscaverde]

Didn't read this review but I do think Civ 5 is much more a math game than Civ 4.

 

[CivCube]

This guy sounds like he wants a gig on NPR. Constant name-dropping, self-consciously clever, and thinks excessive self-reflection makes for journalistic substance.

 

[man-erg]

is this supposed to be a joke?

why do strategy games need souls all of a sudden

And how can he equate "soul" with "cinema"? Were all cultures soulless until the invention of cinema? The vast majority of cinema is disposable bubble gum junk food.

IMHO One of the biggest problems with video games is that designers have become fixated on the latest blockbuster film mega-hits. All the effort goes into cinematics, graphics and sound.

I find it unbelievably strange that so many reviewers totally missed glaring technical problems with Civ5, problems that even fans of the game can see. Yet now we have one who thinks the problem with it is a lack of cinematics and soul. Hmmm..

There were other rather egregious comments that imply the author is a few sandwiches short of a picnic. That the game is so "complex" it took him 10 hours to complete his first game. Did he not notice that it is not the 'complexity' but the horrendous waiting between turns that takes all the time? Civ5 is certainly LESS complex than 2, 3 and 4. Probably less so than 1. I note that he was disappointed about the lack of victory film. On previous Civs at normal level, you'd have to play a good few games before you'd be recording your first victory.

As for the comment that it could gave existed 1,000 years ago...! Did the Vikings have computer hardware that history has missed?

If Civ5 does lack 'soul' (and I think it just might), it is because every design decision had been made to target the masses who found previous Civs too complicated. It is a marketing exercise without the obvious strategy gaming passion that Soren brought to 3 and 4 and Sid (or Brian Reynolds?) to 1 and 2.

 

[Dishonor]

I'm not shure if I can understand it right. Are they telling Civ V hasn't soul, because there is not enough movies in the game?

Movies isn't reason I play game. I skiped intro in like 90% game I have played (I know, I'm extreme).

 

[Vordeo]

Now I want to try and make a mod that makes all Great Artists look like Sam Cooke.