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We don't get to see other Storytellers here often aside from the Windsaga twins, but here we have Alaura Del'hath!

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So it’s cool that folks I follow on here still update. It’s weird coming back here because obviously Tumblr has gone past it’s hey day but with other social sites being a hellscape things aren’t too bad here. I don’t know. Not like it cost me anything to be on here. Maybe I’ll do stuff people give a crap about here. Who knows.

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Looks like I still have one of these. May do something with it since I don’t think I’ve updated since 2015!

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This is adorable.

Sooooo, yeah. First impressions, am I right?

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The best way to reload

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Captioned from the newest We bear bears show. “I will shush the fuck out of you!”

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www.LordAriesCat.com 

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He’s ready to go on an adventure.

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If there is one video game franchise in the world that has consistently been “good” with every new sequel, not to mention fun, addictive, critical and financial successes, it’s got to be the venerable Civilization series, which first graced our computer screens in 1991. A perfect blend of turned based strategy, thrilling engagement and historical revisionism that would make most conspiracy theorists stand in awe, Civilization has gripped millions in the past two decades in the “one more turn” phenomenon with four sequels and even more expansions, standalones and imitators. Expectations were high, when, on October 24, 2K released the Firaxis developed Sid Meier’s Civilization: Beyond Earth, a sci-fi reimagining of the traditional Civ formula, along the lines of the 1999 classic Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri. So, the question is: does Beyond Earth stand up with its predecessors? Can it?   First Impressions and Story Surprisingly, Beyond Earth has a backstory, which is perhaps a first when it comes to Civilization, which often glories in having players make their own stories of the rise and fall of digital empires. About 600 years in the future, and after the un-described “Great Mistake,” (which I’m sure is heavily hinted to basically be World War III) the world struggles to rebuild, and some people believe that the only way to survive as a species is to branch out, and settle amongst the stars. In this process called “The Seeding,” eight sponsors, ranging from the mega-corporation (and implied controller of the US government) American Reclamation Corporation to the religious Kavithan Protectorate, spanning India and Pakistan, set out to build spaceships to reach out to new planets. First impressions are at first exhilarating and slightly disappointing. Based off Civ 5, the mechanics and gameplay is basically the most recent major game in the franchise with a reskin and new ideas. The planet you land on both beautiful and deadly, with aliens that may either leave you alone or attack, but the terrain isn’t as well differentiated as it should have been, with everything being closer to purple than normal. Add purple trees, difficult to see hills and a light green mist of Miasma, most of the planet looks the same, and it’s a question if the tile you land on is actually safe or deadly until it’s too late. Mechanics and Gameplay It’s fair to assume at this point that you know how Civilization plays, being the basis for all 4X games: “eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, and eXterminate.” If you really need to know how it works, here is the Wikipedia article for Civ 5’s gameplay. Instead, I’m going to talk about what Beyond Earth changes and adds When you start the game, you pick one of eight sponsors, all with its special abilities like the Civilizations in Civ 5, and then you pick the kind of colonists, the special equipment on your spaceship, and your cargo, and then determine your planet. Fairly straight forward, but it’s nice that, depending on the faction you chose, you can further stack the deck in your favour with even more abilities. The biggest change could be the new “affinity” system. Similar to the “ideologies” as stands with the Brave New World expansion, there are a few major differences that will change how you play the game. The three affinities are Harmony, Purity and Supremacy, and you can gain any number of points toward your chosen affinity as you play, with both research and quests changing how you gain the points to your affinity that effects the visual style of your cities and units and how other players perceive you, as well as a unique victory condition for each.  Harmony emphasises working with the planet and the aliens to prosper, using bioengineering to survive on the planet to the point where you heal in the otherwise deadly Mimosa, recruit hybrid alien-human units and with the “transcendence” victory to become one with the planet and all the creatures on it. Purity emphasizes maintaining humanity as purely as possible, using exo-suits to survive on the harsh planet and to hell with the native plants and wildlife! They have the “Promised Land” victory to resettle humanity left behind on Earth on their new home world. Supremacy focuses on robotics and cybernetics, immortality through the digital and mechanical, with the “Emancipation” victory condition, which, as nice as it sounds, really means going back to Earth and killing everyone back there. Well then. On top of this, you have the classic “domination” victory, and the “contact” victory to communicate with another alien, space faring species, open to all affinities. As you go up the affinities, you will also unlock upgrades to your units, making everything from your first soldier to your most powerful unique unit adapt to your preferred style of play and aesthetic of your chosen affinity. And, unlike most space-based 4X games, including the much loved Alpha Centauri, unit modifications are not “redesign your unit every time you research a new tech chassis up,” but a much more simple “pick one of two options,” which I found was two different ones for each unit. I originally thought there wasn’t any difference, but I blame the fact that games take 7-10 hours to finish, so I’d forgotten what I chose before. Covert Ops have been expanded upon from what you had in Espionage in Civ 5, with intrigue levels determining what you can do, ranging from stealing resources to launching Affinity special attacks that will devastate whatever city it’s targeted at. Diplomacy is still virtually the same, with the exception of the addition of “favors,” which I originally thought would be a “Get Out of Paying for Resources Free” card, but can be used later on for huge gains, which is great. Not sure if you could use them to get an enemy to attack their ally, but in the realms of Civ diplomacy, I wouldn’t think it’s impossible. Everything from your affinity, trade routes and your actions toward the aliens will effect your diplomacy with other players. In one of perhaps the most exciting addition (or, rather, re-addition) is Quests, like you had all the way back in Civ 4: Beyond the Sword. However, it can get very repetitive: the first time you build a new building, you have a quest to decide what special bonus that building should give you this game, and most quests are divided into three branches, based on the affinity you want to progress up. However, some problems with that: in one early game quest, you decide how you want to respond to one of earth’s species becomes a problematic invasive species in the new world. You can contain it, for Harmony points, or allow it to grow, continuing the Purity and Supremacy paths. But if you decide to go the supremacy route, you then need to build a building in a city that usually requires oil. If your city doesn’t have oil, then you can’t complete the quest, much to my annoyance. “Energy” is the new “gold,” and the basis for all financial transactions in your Empire… er, colony, and diplomacy. There are three kinds of alien resources, canyons, mountains and a lot of other resources ranging from food to oil, crashed satellites, previous settlements, alien nests, and resource pods, which, on top of the Miasma and purple everything, will make the maps really cluttered even at the beginning of the game. The improvements that workers can build are also ridiculously excessive, which makes the late game just as chaotic and cluttered as the beginning. The tech tree has also been redeveloped to form a Tech Web, which, while a cool idea and a logical expansion when you get into space, can be very confusing at times, and makes it hard to figure out what is most important to research and when. But with more playthroughs, I’m sure the Tech Web will make a lot more sense. There are other UI problems, and the Civilopedia, mainstay of the franchise since the beginning, is really in need to streamlining. Aliens are also a major addition. They are not simply barbarians like previous games, but pose a threat to the player right from the beginning of the game to the very end. Be careful venturing too far at the beginning, and hope you aren’t as unlucky as I was to have three alien nests on the one border you can expand in. Also: don’t go into the open ocean until you have powerful enough boats. Krakens and Sea Dragons will crush your gunboats at the beginning of the game so quickly that you could loose your entire navy in a turn. Also, just to mention it here: there is a new Orbital layer for satellites that give bonuses to your army or tiles below you. It’s a cool idea, but seems a bit limited in it’s use, especially when the AI gets angry if you put one too close to them. And one other post-script: I really don’t think wonders are as powerful as they were in other games. They don’t have the huge bonuses that would make or break a game like in Civ 5.   Graphics and Visuals At first it feels like a future game of Civ 5, with aliens and new landforms, as described above. However, the game shines brightest when you progress through the game, and you and your opponents progress up the affinity chains. The fully animated leaders of Civ 5 are still here, just without the background of a burning city or expansive rooms, and it’s exciting to see how they change: Purity leaders gain more decorations and over stylized “classic world” clothes, while Supremacy leaders slowly gain more pieces of electronics and bits of metal sticking out of them. Harmony leaders become more simplified, their clothes slowly looking more like the aliens that are either your best friend or an enemy to be exterminated. The cities and units also change as you progress: Harmony cities become more curved and alien, while units look more biological; Supremacy cities are metal constructs of super-futuristic cities, robot armies and cyborgs; Purity looks more like if Ancient Rome had been transported to the future, with pseudo-Legionary units and ancient inspired works. The one disappointment is that trade caravans, explorer/archeologists and workers don’t change as you go up your affinity. The one problem I have with the visuals is the icons, on both the tech web and on worker functions. Because it’s sci-fi, it seemed the designers went all out, making unique symbols for all the techs, building and units they designed for the game, but it often leads to just confusion for me. Either my resolution is too high, the UI is too small, or maybe my eye sight is going, but yeah, the icons are hard to differentiate, which makes the labyrinth Tech Web an even bigger confused mess. And when you have fifteen different options for your workers when on Civ 5 you would, at most, have five or six, it can feel a bit overwhelming, especially in figuring out what you want. Music It’s a Civilization game! In game music is very repetitive, but fortunately quiet and in the background most of the time. However, unlike Civ 5, it seems that the music doesn’t adapt like it used to. In that game, when you declared war, you got a stirring, deep military theme of victory and sacrifice, while at peace you get a quiet, uplifting and cultured melody. Beyond Earth seems to flip back and forth between different styles at random, so I can be going on a peaceful few turns when suddenly I had martial music coming out of my speakers. Odd. Summary Sid Meier’s Civilization: Beyond Earth is, more or less, yet another Civilization game. However, it’s not just a rip off of Alpha Centauri, unlike what many would have expected, nor is it simply a reskinned Civ 5, despite what I said above. It’s a mixture of the history and nostalgia of Alpha Centauri, with the mechanics and gameplay of Civilization 5, as seen in the final iteration Brave New World, and a totally new universe created by the Firaxis staff. For a studio that usually sticks with either historical time periods or franchises already developed (ex: Civilization and XCOM: Enemy Unknown), this is a bold step, and one that I heartedly applaud. However, the biggest question I have to keep asking myself: was it worth the $50 CDN I spent on it? I could have waited until Thanksgiving (American Thanksgiving, It’s been three weeks since mine!) or Christmas for the Steam Sale, but it’s too late, I already got it. I’m not sure if I can justify this expenditure to myself: gameplay is solid with a few glitches, it’s beautiful and, most importantly, fun, if a bit clunky and unpolished. But it still has that feeling of being just a Civ 5 expansion, which, last time I checked, was $30 when they came out. I would have felt a lot more comfortable with $40, but it would have been total exploitation higher than $50. I fell really bad for Australia, where it’s going to be $90 on release, because I would never have been able to live that down. If you wonder if this game is will be good, then I ask this hypothetical question: Has their ever been a “bad” Civilization? Sure, there may be ups and downs, but almost every Civilization (with maybe the exception of Civ 4 Colonization… but I won’t go there today) has been a stellar game in its time, and totally worth playing. So, in this round-about way, yes, Beyond Earth is worth it, though I bet we will have to wait for the DLC and expansions to perfect the flaws there are here, which is very disappointing, and raises the question: is Civilization as a franchise now just a very lucrative cash-cow for Firaxis and 2K, and they are going to treat it like such? That thought alone raises a lot of questions and concerns for me. Buy it on Steam Here: http://store.steampowered.com/app/65980/

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I might just be a titanic, dorky nerd.

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Support ToonKriticY2K creating Reviews on Animated Content!

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Some of the other nifty things I saw at the museum being some concept art from Fallout 3 as well as the various displays for NES, SNES, and Genesis consoles. I laughed a little when I saw this "Windows 95" display showing off earlier PC games. There was a display for modern day PC games which featured stuff like WoW and Mincraft. This made it all worth the trip.

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One of the more interesting things about the video game exhibit were the historic consoles there were on display. All kinds of interesting facts and various games on display from each system. I can still remember the Atari 2600 as the first time I ever played a video game. Memories.

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Paid a visit to the Toledo Museum of Art on July 2nd 2014 just in time for the "Art of Video Games" Exhibit! It was pretty awesome to see stuff like Mario and Pac-man being projected for folks to play. My childhood now a museum piece... fascinating.

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The gang are joined by everyone’s speed running rhino Larathen! Together they discuss Summer Games Done Quick, Resident Evil 4, the Steam Summer Sale, Dragon Age Origins, and much much more!

Follow us on Twitter! Gaming Furever @GamingFurever Acharky @Atary77 Zovi Asher @ZeroAsher Enigma @newdarkcloud Larathen @larathen