Need more reviews like this...

[Cymsdale]

I'm going to defend Tom's philosophy a little here, even I hold some games in high regard that he didn't like.

You use the term "deserved". Reviews shouldn't be there to tell you what a game objectively deserves. It's up to you to make that call. Tom doesn't very much like the game. That comes out to about a 2 out of 5 (if you read the way he rates his game).

Tom isn't attempting to tell other people what the game "deserves", he's only sharing his opinion on his own personal enjoyment. And if you read his entire article, he explains all of the reasons rather eruditely. I defend this way of reviewing because I think it's the only honest way to do a review, personally.

Yes, I think that's a much better way to use a scoring system.

Ultimately, the amount of enjoyment from the game is the ONLY thing that matters. Polish can certainly be a factor in that, but many review sites have an attitude that great production value and being bug free is enough to get you up to 7-8+, which isn't very helpful when the game is no fun at all. (I'm speaking in an abstract since, not in regard to this specific game.)

 

[PhilBowles]

...to ensure higher quality/standards for the future of the Civilization series. Lauding the game in its current state doesn't do anyone any good - and it's part of the reason why the AI is still abysmal.

http://www.quartertothree.com/fp/20...t-quite-get-beyond-civilization-v/#more-33473

While you might not agree with his final score (2/5), this is the first review I've read where I got the impression that the reviewer actually sunk a decent amount of hours into the game. He goes into details that are merely glossed over or not even mentioned in the majority of 'professional' reviews that have seen BE average around 8/10 overall.

Mainly agree with his points regarding how the problems of Civ V haven't been fixed, while additional layers of complexity have been added, resulting in the AI's continued, poor performance.

It's a nice review, but most of the press reviews I've read say more or less the same thing, if you actually read them rather than looking at the inflated ratings and brief summaries they provide. It's true that those reviews don't dwell on the combat system, but they do point out that the game - and the AI - is very faithful to the Civ V template (conversely, if the writer of this review isn't used to AI air strikes, it seems he hasn't played much Civ V following combat improvements in the expansions).

 

[Jimbo30]

He also gave BNW 2/5. He gave Destiny 3/5...

 

[tommynt]

considering that this is obviously more of a civ5 vanilla mode as a new game, one should give it same grade as civ5 vanilla and then maybe subtract 10% for each year passed - -50%.

so 80% going to 40% seems fair.

I m really very sad that they didnt as least take bnw as Basis for their mode.

The Ai in bte is definatly worse as in bnw, so are comfort functions.

And I figured after sending my 1. internal trade route that this is op - how could game testers not figure that?
Or are only Designers checking the game instead of strategy players?

 

[Sprenk]

The review didn't impress me all the much. He could have made pretty much the same review about CiV/BNW. However, I do agree with his points about the appearance of the UI and miasma. And some of his other specific complaints (like about air combat) seem easily fixable.

It seems to be an intrinsic feature of this type of game that early game decisions are more interesting than the late game decisions, which tend to get repetitious or inconsequential (that's why I start so many games I never finish--and why I like small empires so I can just hit ENTER a lot and get a won game finished quickly).

I'm having trouble thinking of a Civ-like game that doesn't have this very same problem (Alpha Centauri included). So I guess you can give BE a 2/5 if you want to, but it's certainly a better game than something like Endless Legend. Maybe he just doesn't like this kind of game?

 

[Drowsy Emperor]

The review corresponds with my impression of the game and I wanted to like this game. That is all I care about. I would give it 6/10, but the score doesn't really matter because in my book, once you drop below 7 - its not fixable.

I uninstalled the game after my second playthrough. I was playing as PAC building my way to a money empire. No one ever attacked me. The late game (220-250 turns) consisted of putting up orbitals and shuffling trade routes around. I was making 500+ gold per round, able to buy anything in two turns. Then the mind flower project said 50 turns to build (because in a game where you can buy everything with money all of a sudden you can't hurry up a wonder) and I rage quit. The reason you couldn't buy a wonder is because no one would ever produce anything in this game if they allowed it, since money trumps production 90% of the time. I raqe quit because I couldn't endure ten more turns of nothing, let alone fifty.

No one attacked me, in fact no one attacked anyone. It felt like I was playing civ themed solitaire.

I amused myself by using the remaining aliens as target practice. They tend to die in one hit against the late game units. The AI must have been bored as well since they were doing the same thing.

In Civ games, the endgame is traditionally weak but it speeds up quickly due to the high production and research. In BE its pure agony.

IMO this game isn't going anywhere. Several subsystems are broken (trading, diplomacy, combat AI), some are simply filler crap (espionage, questing, virtues) and the game is thoroughly bland in terms of back story and factions. There is no expansions that can fix all that.

 

[Sprenk]

No one attacked me, in fact no one attacked anyone. It felt like I was playing civ themed solitaire.

I understand your frustration. On the other hand, in my first game Koslov dropped quite close to me, I settled my 2nd city right in his face--and the fight was on. Lots of fun! So far, I get the sense that the AI aggressiveness is similar to BNW's

 

[Castar]

Good review. I'm not much of a warmonger myself and don't really mind a passive AI, but the following nicely sums up my main beef as a peaceful empire-builder:

"So many options for whatever I like, all under nonsense science names and a busy iconography that will barely register, and sometimes locked behind strategic resources that I’ve hardly needed all game. It’s as if Beyond Earth never thought I’d make it this far, as if all this cool stuff about calling wormstrikes on cities or launching tacjets from carriers or using advanced evolved supreme titans of harmony were just bullet points to make me think there would be an endgame that consisted of something other than “next turning”."

For me, it starts very early: one of the first things you do is take your first worker and build a farm. A farm. Not even a "greenhouse", or something else even remotely plausible and/or futuristic. Nope, just take the seeds out of the colony ships, put on a straw hat and go about our business Old McDonald style, like the last couple of lightyears never happened. Then later your farms get boosted through a tech called "vertical farming", one of the few techs for which you can actually imagine something, but do your farms actually change? Nope. When you've finally tamed a planet, hundreds, thousands of years into the future, the farms look like the ones you planted in Civ V, 2000BC.

This goes for pretty much everything. It's all uninspiring, lazy gobbledygoock. The affinities and the tech never actually feel like what they're supposed to be. I never feel like I'm taming a hostile world, or merging with it, or evolving past weaknesses of the flesh. Nothing changes except some numbers and textboxes.

 

[Sherlock]

No one attacked me, in fact no one attacked anyone. It felt like I was playing civ themed solitaire.

IMO this game isn't going anywhere. Several subsystems are broken (trading, diplomacy, combat AI), some are simply filler crap (espionage, questing, virtues) and the game is thoroughly bland in terms of back story and factions. There is no expansions that can fix all that.

I agree... this game being fixable is not a sure thing.

I think it likely this game will see a few patches, maybe one DLC, then nothing while Firaxis moves on to Civ VI.

 

[Strickl3r]

Sadly the game, although disappointing most civ veterans, is one of the better games that got released the last few years. So it's more like a 4/5 than a 2 /5.

Because of ''dumb customers'' who complain about stuff beeing to difficult to handle, games become more casual every year and good franchises lose their quality.

If they wouldn't make the big games easy, most of the customers would spent their money on shakes and fidget i guess and new league of legends skins.

 

[Sherlock]

Sadly the game, although disappointing most civ veterans, is one of the better games that got released the last few years. So it's more like a 4/5 than a 2 /5.

Because of ''dumb customers'' who complain about stuff beeing to difficult to handle, games become more casual every year and good franchises lose their quality.

If they wouldn't make the big games easy, most of the customers would spent their money on shakes and fidget i guess and new league of legends skins.

There's a big difference between 'level of difficulty' and bad AI, bad UI, and just generally poor design.

 

[Drowsy Emperor]

He means by comparison. Being better than the competition in the mucky little pond pc strategy gaming has become may not be difficult for Firaxis and it will still win them points with new players and old players without anything else to play.

After all, SMAC was 15 years ago, which, when you translate video game time to real world time might as well be the late stone age. Civ V is proof that streamlining and reducing the complexity of a game can still net you profit. Old players are always the minority, no one cares if they're disappointed and move on.

Thankfully I watched some videos of BE before trying it out, so I didn't raise my hopes high... Even though I did wait 15 years for a decent sequel to SMAC or at least a remake with new tech.

 

[r0ck]

first game, Brasilia. Elodie to my right and Kavitha to my left. I have trade routes to everybody (for the diplo bonus).

Elodie, and Kavie, sign a coop. I expand south, Slavs and arc get a bit annoyed.

Kavie shows up and "faking friendship is annoying but instead of dancing on stars, we will dance on your ashes". Elodie "you are anathema to this planet, and should be removed"...

i managed to clear the carpets of doom by a mix of lucked out affinity robots, but def it was fun. they had artie, ranged, armor amongst their numbers, and, if any particular limitation emerged is that they still cant focus fire on one particular unit.

Everybody thought afterwards that i was a warmonger, so i proceeded to emancipate them from their flesh