| Game Reviews From a Parental Perspective! | |
|
|
|
| Home | Forums | Review Archive | Columns | Feature Articles |
|
Home >
Review Archive >
Video Games
> Results: Civilization IV
Format For Printing | Tell A Friend | Digg | Slashdot | del.icio.us | Buy This Game Scroll down for our Kid Factor. 
In terms of PC strategy, two names evoke a very special kind of gameplay. Those names are "Sid Meier" and "Civilization." It's an interesting concept, one that most mainstream gamers and parents probably haven't heard of. The idea is to take a real-world civilization from the brutal Stone Age all the way to the near future. Along the way you're tiny empire grows, meets its neighbors, fights and destroys them, founds Religions, builds monuments and spreads culture, and by the end conquers the world, dominates the other civilizations, wins a diplomatic victory, or simply reaches the end of the game in the leading position. That's how you win, but Civilization is the kind of game that's rewarding, even when you're losing.
Each Civilization begins with a special technology or two, a Warrior or Scout unit, and a Settler. The game amounts to a balancing act between research, production, happiness, culture, and a bunch of other concepts. This isn't a simple game - even though the new 3D graphics and animations make it a beautiful and friendly game ﾖ this is still one of the most intelligent, complicated, and, at first, baffling games you can install on your hard-drive. It helps that more of the game than ever is automated by default. Set your Workers to choose where to improve, notice when the game suggests ideal new city locations, set your scouts and explorers to do so automatically. It's up to you and fortunately the artificial intelligence doesn't let you down. After mucking with the almost inadequate tutorial (honestly, how could you make an effective tutorial for a game like this?) and playing a few games, astute players will see how neatly the concepts fall into place and get tantalizing glimpses of just how impressive and well-built this game is.  Then the compulsion sets in. You'll find yourself thinking about the game when you're not playing it. Wondering just when the right time to start a war is, how to sustain one, and how to gain the advantages needed to win your first big game. Every game tells a story. It's hard to forget when Japan surprise attacked me on my border and I had to rush units to the beleaguered city of York. Just as it seemed his Samurai, Catapults, and Knights were going to finally dislodge my garrisoned Musketeers, I discovered Rifling and set about upgrading my units. A quick counter-attack later and I was sitting pretty and occupying Tokyo. One significant addition to the game is the role of religion and spirituality in the game. Now the discovery of certain technologies might lead to the founding of Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism, Taoism, Judaism, and Christianity. Religion moves and flows from city to city, empire to empire, and can have both negative and positive effects on your cities. It can start wars (religion can be just one more factor that makes rivals like or hate you) and it contributes to both culture and happiness ﾖ much like real history. It's a wonderful addition, maturely handled, and compelling. The only change I'd make is to add Protestantism to the mix. Martin Luther's affect on human history can't be discounted, even if done so in favor of recognizing something cool like Taoism. The buildings feel like achievements, you can actually see them in your cities now, and the many Wonders you can build (everything from the Pyramids, Hanging Gardens, to the Statue of Liberty, and The Manhatten Project ﾖ yes Virginia, there are Nukes in the game) lend the game a peaceful, educational quality, which makes the game rewarding and fun, even if you choose not to go to war. They either automated or eliminated much of the busy-work and how the game used to bog down in later turns, which is great. Now the game can be played quickly, efficiently, and without some careful planning, the end looms (of course, you can continue after the turn limit is reached ﾖ or after someone wins a Space Race, Domination, Culture, Conquest, or Score victory). Oddly, nothing seems lost. Tinkerers can still maintain control turn by turn of their empires, or you can spend vast portions of the game simply letting the game automate the boring tasks while you hit "Next Turn" over and over again.  All of this is playable in multiplayer and, finally, multiplayer works pretty well out of the box. I'm not convinced it's needed, this isn't really a great 2-player game no matter how they shorten the duration or that they made turns simultaneous. A 7-player game if arranged would be cool, but who has the time and opportunity? Also it should be noted that some players are having problems. Unpatched the game doesn't seem to appreciate ATI video cards for example, and some are plagued with crashes and slow downs, and the game is very much a resource hog. That's the tradeoff for all this beauty - but then again, people are used to upgrading for Civ. It's sort of a tradition among the strategy faithful. So, yeah, there are bugs, but Firaxis is hard at work at fixes, and the past indicates they'll get these problems out of the way eventually. Personally, I encountered none of these problems. 
There's nothing offensive in the game. The combat animations are tasteful and inoffensive and there's nothing sexual or questionable about the game. It's possible that some of the more devout or close-minded players might find the prospect of leading an Empire who founded Islam or Hinduism is offensive by itself ﾖ so those players should watch out. But for everyone else the only consideration in regards to children is ... how smart are they? Civilization IV is a really smart game. It requires a good eye for relationships, data, and mastery of countless variables. It teaches a bit about history (all the Wonders, for example, are based on real-world Wonders) and it tickles the imagination. It's the kind of game that could make your kids very curious about world cultures, history, and all the nuanced and deep relationships that make up the many cultures of the world. The compulsive (just-one-more-turn) nature of the game means that kids will get a lot of this one, provided they have enough time to actually play something this deep and rich. Hey, sounds like edutainment to me! (In a good way.)
Comments? Chat about it in our forums! Format For Printing | Tell A Friend | Digg | Slashdot | del.icio.us | Buy This Game Home > Review Archive > Video Games > Results: Civilization IV |
Read the GamerDad 2007 Holiday Guide!
|
Please Note: GamerDad is not intended to be read by anyone under 18. We stay clean, but be warned! Content Management System developed by Redbird Solutions. |
