Posts tagged “Sid Meier”

Sid Meier, that legendary game dev whose name sits before the names of Civilization games, had a lovely chat with our very own Nate Crowley this weekend, as part of PAX Online X EGX Digital. The pair talked all about some of the most notable parts of Meier's career - including, Railroad Tycoon, Pirates!, and Civilization - as well as chat about his upcoming book,…

Gandhi is one of the most unique figure in history. His adherence to non-violence, his establishment of a full-fledged philosophy behind it and, above all, his success, are practically without precedent. Kings, empires and leaders can often blur into each other. The locations change, the dates are different and the numbers differ, but the essence remains the same. Gandhi was something completely different, and yet…

No matter how many variants of “cool human does awesome thing in Minecraft” [official site] stories I hear about, I’m always blown away by the ingenuity some people have. This time, a team of modders have managed to bring much of Civilization [official site] into Mojang’s burgeoning sandbox. The mod is called Civilizationcraft [official site], and a new update has just added religion to the…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

Traitorously abandoning the all-father of gaming platforms to go mince about on mobile, Sid Meier released Ace Patrol earlier this year for iOS. Thankfully, sense (possibly money) prevailed and he's seen fit to bring his World War 1 air-battler back home. If hex-based historical revision's your bag, the strategy master might have what you need. Rather than the free to play, micro-transaction supported original release, it's…

Alpha Centauri has a special place in my heart. It's a sort of spin-off from the Civilisation series (but don't tell the lawyers), released way back in 1999. It's not available to buy digitally (EDIT: Now available on GOG.com), but it had a Complete Edition reissue on the Sold Out range, available on Amazon US/UK. It's essentially Civ in space. Or is it?

An epic Civ V trailer sits below the click, and it contains plenty of game footage, as well as featuring the dev team talking about their plans for the fifth in the absurdly popular strategy series. Interesting that modding is at the forefront of their angle of attack this time, something that they say was inspired by modder responses to the previous game. Anyway, go…

Here's proof positive that uncle Sid isn't just a figurehead these days. In the fun mini-documentary below, the god of Civilization pops back to his old university to encourage and judge a group of wannabe developers in a 48 hour build-a-game contest. Which seems to frazzle their minds in and of itself, but then he goes and designs a game in 48 hours too, which…

Civilization IV: Colonization (prop. Sid Meier) is due out all sorts of soon, but we've yet to see a teaser or trailer. UNTIL NOW! See how I surprised you? Of course, showing me an RTS or TBS is the equivalent of showing a 12th century peasant an iPhone. I react with fear, suspicion, and ultimately setting things on fire. Fortunately, three other people in the…

Newsweek's N'Gai Croal writes that he managed to ask Firaxis' Sid Meier about the possible EA take-over of their owner Take 2. To which Sid responds..."We worked with Electronic Arts ten years ago. We respect them highly as a company. They're a great company. We enjoy working with Take-Two. We'll let them sort that out [laughs]. Take-Two has been very good about giving us the…

From our 'Putting Words In Sid Meier's Mouth' desk.Newish community-written site Gamersglobal chucked up an exclusive interview with cuddly ol' Sid Meier over the weekend. He was there primarily to talk about Civilization Revolution, the upcoming console reimagining of the strategy daddy, but dropped in this intruiging bombshell:"I certainly would like to play around with a MMO concept in the future... I enjoy the idea…