Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Fellow writers of RPS: you have betrayed me. And on this, the day of love? You wound me, sirs, you wound me. The title track from Civilization – aka The Greatest Gaming Moment of 2005 – won a Grammy at the weekend. It is the first piece of music originally recorded for a videogame to ever scoop a Grammy win. We should have celebrated this. We should have posted three, four, five times about it. Yet no, you did not post it during my absence today. HAVE YOU NO LOVE IN YOUR HEARTS, SIRS?*

It is the song of union, the song of peace, the song of harmony. Come, let us reforge this bond between us! Let us sing it together.
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This is a sad one. We reported that the minds behind the Civ ultramod Fall From Heaven were working on a standalone commercial game in the same universe. Well, no longer. Kael reports that the game – “Fall From Heaven Tactics” – is being put on ice due to the funding falling through. I’ve republished the short Q&A below…
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‘Art Deco’ is basically the only school of design I’m at all familiar with. My own approach to design in any regard doesn’t go any further than “make most of the colours the same.” So when I see something that’s Art Deco, I become slightly excited. I recognised a thing that I know! I can sound very vaguely learned! So has it been with Civilization V, a beta build of which I’ve cuddled up to over the last few weeks. “The menus are Art Deco,” I say whenever anyone asks me what the game is like. Then I nod wisely. Then they ask me about hexagons, and I punch them in the teeth.
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In the grand tradition of mods gone pro, such as Counter-Strike, Killling Floor and that unplayable Doom 2 level with 354 Cacodemons I made back in 1995, fantasy-themed Civilization IV uber-total conversion Fall From Heaven is going standalone.

How so? We don’t know. With what engine? We don’t know. With which publisher? We don’t know. WE DON’T KNOW. We know only that it is, in theory, enormously good news – Fall From Heaven has accrued the kind of status that a good 50% of people you mention Civ 4 to will immediately name-check it, so it’s not really a surprise that this is happening. There are any number of specialist strategy PC publishers who would be insane not to pick it up. Trailer of the still-existent mod version below, trailer fans.
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Woohooheeheehahah. First Beyond Good & Evil 2 and now this. It’s been quite a month for shock returns.

Yes, my favourite Civilization game that isn’t a Civilization game is returning: as a Civilization game. Civ IV: Colonization is to be a standalone expansion for, clearly, Civ IV. Once again, the aim is the turn-based establishment of the New World, and freedom from the money-grabbing motherland, by conquest, trade or diplomacy and… well, pretty much no more details so far. Well, except for one more screenshot, a release date and a typically chipper Sid Meier quote, which are all beneath the cut.

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