The fact that Civ4 is not in the top 50 at Gamerankings is enough (that's a repeated statistic, m'kay, and it doesn't count), but there are more reasons why. First of all, let's start with all these dumb discussions I've gotten myself in. I constantly thought of what should have been in BtS after I played it. The scenarios were dumb, except for RaFoC which was extremely timeconsuming. I think everything truly finished off with my computer going bogus on Christmas (due to some program my dad installed that was meant to make it run faster, though he thought it was because of StarCraft), but when I tried to return to Civ4 again, I didn't really get too much fun (after playing all that Mario and Metroid, and soon, Zelda). But worst of all are these dumb "Civ3 vs. Civ4" debates. Nobody's going to have a large scale debate over whether Metroid Prime is better than Metroid Prime 2 or 3, because they all happen in a sequence. Bah.
And while I understand I shouldn't be throwing needless statistics around, Civ4 was not in IGN's Top 100 Games List last November. I was just thrown off by that. That's not because of the fact that Civ4 didn't make the list that time, rather it was because of what HAVE made it into the Top 100 in previous years. Battlefield 1942 might count, but it's because of the website members' addictions, so that's fine. Now, in the 2005 list they had Freedom Force (an RPG where you make your superheroes) at #81 (that may not sound like much, but Final Fantasy VII was #88, though that's wwwwwwwwaaaaaayyyyyy off) and Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings at #53 (might not sound like much, but Smash Bros. Melee was #58, and Metroid Prime was just a place ahead of Age of Empires II, with GTAIII just ahead). And let's not forget about Rome: Total War at #14 in 2005 and #53 in 2007. But anyways, I was incredibly disheartened about IGN not having Civ4 in the Top 100 (at least Civ2 was #3, wish I played it). And later, I managed to discard the fact, but then Civ4 was also not in the Readers' Choice Top 100 in 2006 (actually, no Civilization game was there, and Rome: Total War, Fire Emblem, Disgaea: Hour of Darkness, and Advance Wars were all there). So why play it? A game that's never made it into IGN's Top 100 Games lists of any sort has stolen 2 years of my life? No, thanks. I still play Civ4 every now and then, and I still enjoy it (though my computer has a tendency to randomly autoshutdown when I'm playing an actual game), but when it gets time consuming, I'll just find something else to do. Maybe I should play Advance Wars, Fire Emblem, Final Fantasy Tactics, or something like that to get an epic TBS all over again.
Still, my own opinion is that Civilization is frustrating. Here's my summary of my opinions.
Super Mario Galaxy offers painless platforming fun Fighting giant bugs, giant moles, etc. has never been better for me.
Metroid Prime 3 (pretty much the whole trilogy) is just a fun (and frightening) first-person adventure, and rolling as a ball through the tubes can get really fun. And let's not even mention fighting Ridley or Dark Samus
Zelda: Twilight Princess offers more third-person adventure fun, and I like how some other guys use their wits to help me in the middle of the game.
StarCraft is fun because, well, you get to shoot down organic buildings and participate in an incredibly epic struggle between three almost completely different races.
Mario Kart DS packs in all the fun with those shells, bananas, bullet bills, stars, etc., and I get more fun in 30 minutes than I do with 3 hours of Civ4.
Super Smash Bros. Brawl, well, do I need to explain why I like it?
Civilization IV, on the other hand, is no fun in the beginning (mostly after you've repeated it over and over again) and gets a little better in the medieval era, but the music is sooo repetitive, and the graphics are no better (maybe that's because I've been seeing them over and over again for 2 years). Then, in the modern era, when things get most epic, there is a huge slowdown, and it takes forever to get your game saved. There. That's why Civilization IV is a toy compared to my favorite games. And in summer, it's going to get hit by The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind.
And once I finish StarCraft, I'll take to Age of Kings. And I'll probably find somebody to play multiplayer with later.
