Churchdown Yank
Cyber Caesar
Got the October 2010 issue of PC Gamer UK in the post today.
Civ V not on the cover? That honour went to "Portal 2". Hmmmm.
Review inside: 93/100. That's qualifies for Editor's Choice, but Civ IV scored 94. Another Hmmmm.
Nothing new feature-wise in the review that hasn't been covered here in some form. Although there are some descriptions of things that we've discussed but haven't usually been seen in the standard reviews. No mention of which version or build was played, although one presumes it must be pretty close to the final one. (or actually must be the final one, because PC Gamer will not review non-release builds, or when they have rarely done in the past they've mentioned it and not scored it)
The review does spend most of the time describing the features rather than how the reviewer feels about the features sadly, so there isn't much new to report.
Some selected tidbits:
"... similar enough to be familiar to veterans, different enough to be fresh and ... a great place for new players to pick up one hell of a Civ addiction."
"Firaxis were fearless about slaughtering the series' sacred cows in order to make taking over the world feel new again, and most of the sacrifices made have turned out to be wise decisions"
"indisputably the best-looking turn-based strategy game ever made"
after a few hours the reviewer barely noticed the difference between hexes and squares, but "never once found myself pining for the old squares"
Wasn't certain about the UI for the first dozen hours or so, but "the new super-friendly interface has grown on me quite a bit despite its almost overeagerness to move things along"
Combat is by far the most important change to gameplay. Definite thumbs up for 1 UPT and so on. AI can be a bit stupid, moving ranged units right up to melee units.
No information on diplo. No diplo screen = bad. The AI generally pretty good except for some combat stupidity as mentioned above.
Social Policies and City States are good additions.
"As for where this game fits into the series, Civ V isn't necessarily a definitively better empire-building game than Civ IV - as that would be almost impossible. This is more of an equal that exists in parallel, offering a fresh and invigorating style of play with more of an emphasis on combat"
"Civ V isn't simply a rehash of what came before with better graphics: it's a whole new world with a whole new set of rich, intricate rules to master. It's also impossible for a strategy fan to resist picking up... or to quit."
"Summary: Gorgeous graphics and deep combat make this a great place to start or renew your interest in global domination."
Civ V not on the cover? That honour went to "Portal 2". Hmmmm.
Review inside: 93/100. That's qualifies for Editor's Choice, but Civ IV scored 94. Another Hmmmm.
Nothing new feature-wise in the review that hasn't been covered here in some form. Although there are some descriptions of things that we've discussed but haven't usually been seen in the standard reviews. No mention of which version or build was played, although one presumes it must be pretty close to the final one. (or actually must be the final one, because PC Gamer will not review non-release builds, or when they have rarely done in the past they've mentioned it and not scored it)
The review does spend most of the time describing the features rather than how the reviewer feels about the features sadly, so there isn't much new to report.
Some selected tidbits:
"... similar enough to be familiar to veterans, different enough to be fresh and ... a great place for new players to pick up one hell of a Civ addiction."
"Firaxis were fearless about slaughtering the series' sacred cows in order to make taking over the world feel new again, and most of the sacrifices made have turned out to be wise decisions"
"indisputably the best-looking turn-based strategy game ever made"
after a few hours the reviewer barely noticed the difference between hexes and squares, but "never once found myself pining for the old squares"
Wasn't certain about the UI for the first dozen hours or so, but "the new super-friendly interface has grown on me quite a bit despite its almost overeagerness to move things along"
Combat is by far the most important change to gameplay. Definite thumbs up for 1 UPT and so on. AI can be a bit stupid, moving ranged units right up to melee units.
No information on diplo. No diplo screen = bad. The AI generally pretty good except for some combat stupidity as mentioned above.
Social Policies and City States are good additions.
"As for where this game fits into the series, Civ V isn't necessarily a definitively better empire-building game than Civ IV - as that would be almost impossible. This is more of an equal that exists in parallel, offering a fresh and invigorating style of play with more of an emphasis on combat"
"Civ V isn't simply a rehash of what came before with better graphics: it's a whole new world with a whole new set of rich, intricate rules to master. It's also impossible for a strategy fan to resist picking up... or to quit."
"Summary: Gorgeous graphics and deep combat make this a great place to start or renew your interest in global domination."
I like Portal, however it's memes do get run into the ground a bit. 
, i'm going to buy and look forward to playing both, and I guess maybe a bit more for Civ5, as I will play this easily for over 200+ hours, but Portal 1 for example, I played through maybe twice, as I said it lacks re-playability, hopefully they have improved on this somewhat otherwise when comparing 200+ hours of Civ5 against some 10 Hours of Portal 2, I think it is obvious which is better at satisfying my boredom 
