As a bit of a Civ fan this has obviously been catching my eye everytime I’ve logged into steam the last few weeks (where it’s available for pre-order), and since it’s out tomorrow I thought I’d better check what people have been saying about it.
My extensive research has extended to PC Gamer and IGN, but having said that both sites tend to give reviews I largely agree with, and based on a couple of videos I’ve decided to get it.
This is the video which sold me on it, and tbh you don’t even need to watch the full video as I’d made up my mind after around 5 minutes, and certainly by 15 (although I’ve been playing Civ games since I was 10, so I’m not exactly a hard sell when it comes to this). The videos shows some of the main changes in the game compared to Civ 5, with most of the highlights related to alien behaviour, tech changes, social policy advancement, and an affinity system which basically allows you to customise your Civ as time goes on. Above all it looks like a reskinned Civ5 Brave new world but with some significantly interesting gameplay changes which I think are following the Brave new world approach which was the first real attempt to reverse the dumb down Civ for console kids strategy adopted for vanilla Civ 5. This is basically what sold me on this new version, but if anyone’s interested I’ll report back once I’ve given it a go over the next few days.
[youtube:u1fwhpwj]sk9Uf_jILTM[/youtube:u1fwhpwj]
This second video, at the top of the IGN article below, is shorter and focuses more on what the different choices translate to in terms of gameplay after 250 turns. It doesn’t really show you how you get there though, which the first video explains better.
http://uk.ign.com/articles/2014/09/26/becoming-the-villain-in-the-first-250-turns-of-civilization-beyond-earth
Anyway, I also had a quick google and found that cdkeys.com are doing a cheaper deal than the steam pre-order offer, so if you’re thinking about getting it, check the link below, although feel free to have a more thorough search online if you think you can do better:
http://www.cdkeys.com/pc/games/civilization-beyond-earth-pc-cd-key-steam