Here’s the latest Civilization: Beyond Earth – Rising Tide [official site ] trailer talking about hybrid affinities, overthrowing dictatorships, and combining harmony and purity in a part faux-propaganda, part technical rundown of what the upcoming expansion has to offer.
Have You Played? is an endless stream of game recommendations. One a day, every day of the year, perhaps for all time.
The exclamation mark doesn’t mean I’m shouting at you. It’s part of the game’s name. Originally released in 1987 (though I first played it on an Amiga in the early nineties), Pirates! was the first game to carry Meier’s name in the title, although not the first game created by the statesman of strategy. It’s a fine early example of open world gaming, allowing players to create a unique legacy within its ever-changing world.
There’s few game designers whose names alone perk my interest, but Sid Meier is one of them. He’s the videogame industry’s avuncular Werther’s Original dispenser, popping sugary, plastic-wrapped hexes into the hands of young designers everywhere. I met him once and I can’t remember if he was sat in a rocking chair, but let’s assume that he was.
I am now rocking because Firaxis have announced Sid Meier’s Starships, a new game set after and within the same fiction as the recent Civilization: Beyond Earth. Speaking to Gamespot about the announcement, Meier explained that it would be st in space, would feature “dynamically generated tactical combat”, and that the focus would be “starship design” and “interstellar adventure, diplomacy and exploration.” There’s an animated trailer below.
RPS Feature As Good As Arrest
Spies! They’re kind of dicks®. If they’re not seducing us or gambling away our taxes, they’re shoving microphones into cats or jabbing us with umbrellas. It’s hardly surprising that so many games about them veer into cartoonish James Bond territory, or cartoonish parody of cartoonish James Bond territory, or some kind of recursive humour vacuum that threatens to make Miranda Harts of us all.
But there’s a lot to be said for the more grounded approach. Sid Meier’s Covert Action, for example, steers clear of supervillains and outlandish capers, instead presenting a sort of action puzzle, with various criminal mysteries to be solved via a collection of minigames. Say “collection of minigames” in the early 90s and the responses you’d get would likely be “take this film licence dreck out the back and shoot it”, but Covert Action is a far better game than that technically accurate description lets on – and one still worth playing today. Let me explain.
I love it when a plan comes together. On the surface, Covert Action is a game about minigames, each acting as an optional node in a procedurally generated tale of espionage and infiltration, but it’s really about the metagame. Covert Action is one of those games that bloody well deserves a remake – even Meier said it had tried to do too much on its initial release. It was about as ahead of its time as James Joyce shaking hands with an Eloi and I’d love to see a version made with modern tech. Maybe some of the charm would be lost though – I’ve been mucking about with the game this morning following a Steam release (it’s already on GoG) and it continues to be brilliant, despite overstretching itself and my brain cells.
Is… Is this E3 news? On day three, I can’t tell anymore. Did Sid Meier swing on a trapeze across the E3 concourse to announce that Civilization 5 was now available on SteamOS and Linux? Did Aspyr gather the world’s press in an art deco theatre to reveal that this was their first Linux port, after years of porting popular games to Mac? Or is it the case that there was a simple post on Civ V’s Steam forum to declare that users of Ubuntu could now begin conquering 4X strategy worlds?
Probably that last one.
The latest Humble Bundle offers the chance to own three complete Civilizations, as if you were trying to recreate the British Empire. Along with Civs III, IV, the lowest tier contains the recent Ace Patrol games, which are fairly lightweight, but clever, replayable and oddly adorable considering the World War dogfighting subject matter. All of that, along with the latest incarnation of Railroads! can be yours for any chosen price. Pay more than the average (at time of writing, $8.16) and you’ll receive Civ V, and the Gods and Kings DLC. More than $15 unlocks the Brave New World DLC as well. BONUS: approximately two days of a Humble Paradox sale remain.
