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PREVIOUS ARTICLES

#202 CIVIII WILL DESTROY FREE WORLD As if Civ couldn't get any more addictive? It didn't #201 THE SQUEAKY WHEEL GETS THE GREASE It's a matter of fiction... or is it? #200 CIVIII: ICS EMBRACED The origins and future of "Infinite City Sleaze" #199 WHAT CIV IS NOT There's whole incredible world beyond our computers #198 THE NATURE OF SEQUELS A really extensive review of some of the biggest games series #197 THE FIRST ONLINE RELEASE It's a new internet age and Civ3 is the first civ game of it, says Rasbelin COLUMN ARCHIVE

This article should really come as no surprise to the Civ community. For nearly 2 years we had been eagerly awaiting for our Civilization III game to come out. Only to be utterly disappointed with the final product. I will sum up some of this below.

One of the first things to raise my eyebrows was the fact that CivIII was being released way to soon after 2 years in development. I realize (I believe I read this in one of the previous articles) that game companies will often find that development is going over budget and just release the game half done so to stay in the black (At the expense of the companies reputation). Usually this is the case with lessor known titles or small companies that usually cant afford to sit on a game and make sure it is completely done. But Infogames and Firaxis do not fit this profile. Has anything with the Firaxis label ever failed? (Just for the record CivIII isn't failing) Does Infogames think they are a small game company? I for one would have been willing to wait to have CivIII iron out all the bugs, even if it took another 2 years to do so.

Another thing that troubled me was the fact multiplayer wasn't included. Anyone who made the mistake of buying a Nintendo 64 (Sorry Nintendo fans, Gamecube looks better thankfully) knows it was mostly the multiplayer function that made gamers stay with a dead system. Goldeneye, Perfect Dark, Battletanx and Smash Bros, really owe there success to multiplayer and good programming. So not to include multiplayer is utterly stupid. Now of course the decision to do this goes back to shipping the stinker to make money during the Christmas holiday. But by far the worst mistake Firaxis made was making the game extremely hard to mod. By now we have all beaten the game several times and its replayablity is starting to look a little limited. CivII was chuck full of Mod opportunities, Map creation, and Scenario building. But not so with CivIII. I would have loved to Mod those Unique Units but I am finding that this is extremely hard to do so. Changing the game rules was easier in CivII then CivIII and even nice things like the freakin' map zoom is missing. I cant even make accurate maps because I cant zoom out or in and even trying to scroll is bad. Don't even get me started on Scenario creating. I mean at least give us the opportunity to place fixed locations for civs starting out.

My last and less nit pick would have to be the actual in game stuff. Sure it would be nice to stack units then spend five minutes moving all my workers to a pollution square. Sure it would be nice to conduct spying without spending a nation treasury taking one tech. Sure it would be great if my neighbours wouldn't walk through my territory and then declare war on me when I ask them to stop. But these things can be easily fixed with another (cough, cough) "Patch". I know many gamers hate the culture and resource thing in the game but I like the new strategies that involve taking advantage of both. Oh sure not having any horses or iron in the beginning sucks but hey life isn't always fair. Why should a simulation be any different? Over come it with your playing skills and stay off the boards on Apolyton.

Hopefully CivIV takes care of all this and if Firaxis tries what SimCity 3000 Unlimited did ("oh hey everyone -- spend another $50 on stuff we should have included to begin with"), I'm never buying another Firaxis/Infogames product again.

Sorry about the venting and Keep on Civ'in.

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Civ'in since 1996

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The opinions expressed on this page do not necessarily reflect those of Apolyton CS or GameStats. They are just the personal opinions of the writer.