[quote]I am looking at the number 585. It's below the "hours played" tab for my copy of Civilization V and I...well, I'm not sure I want to dwell on that figure. But I can tell you that for all those hours, I've only actually seen a single session with the history-based strategy game through to completion. I'm an absentee world leader: present for my peoples' first fumbling steps towards agriculture, gone again somewhere between the invention of the compass and the internal combustion engine. I get into these obsessive restarting loops, curious just to see what new permutation the game's map-making algorithms spit out. Eventually I'll nestle a few defensible cities into the mountainside, churn through tech advancements until I can fuss over cute little janissaries or hussar units like they're collectible figurines. Then, in a sudden fit of self-loathing, I'll wipe the board clean. It's wonderful, soul-sucking entertainment.Sid Meier's Civilization: Beyond Earth shifts the series' brand of turn-based discovery and conquest off-planet, and the sci-fi setting puts a slick, chrome sheen on my old neurosis. But Beyond Earth also calcifies much of Civilization V's vocabulary and play arc. You still situate your capital city, and click it to designate the production of military units or workers that can spruce up your immediate surroundings. You still unlock new technologies and cultural policies that ensure a steady drip of upgrades and benefits. There are the familiar icons for production, food, and culture to illustrate the quantified output of your cities, and a new one, energy, is a reasonable enough stand-in for currency--its icon even looks a bit like a golden coin to ease you into the transition. So despite the new trappings, it's simple enough to slide back into routine. Create, explore, and expand--or, if you're like me, create, explore, quit, and create again.There are a few welcome touch-ups to smooth over Civilization's old edges, and they first appear in pregame as a series of decisions to make prior to starting your bid for global domination. A first step can be taken towards generating energy, science, culture, et alia, and you can opt to begin the game with a military unit, or a clinic if you'd prefer. There's more freedom afforded when picking out which parcel of land to found your first city on, and there's even a perk that reveals the outlines of the world's land masses. So much for my incessant restarting, then--all things considered, Beyond Earth seems to output viable starting situations more reliably than its predecessors.But viable doesn't necessarily mean welcoming--this is an alien planet, after all, and colonizing it is going to beget some unfortunate learning experiences on the behaviors of local wildlife as part of due course. Maybe those lessons will come from the sandworm churning up your freshly tilled farmland a few tiles from your capital and consuming any trade expedition you send in its general direction. Or maybe from the creature that's three-quarters mandible, just kind-of loitering ominously offshore. Aliens play the role of the barbarian tribes from the last few Civilization games, as an entity that's not exactly "in it to win it." But they'll mess with your early game plans all the same, utilizing better cunning and more imposing units than their old club-wielding counterparts. Even Beyond Earth's loan translations of the previous entries' forests, mountains, and livestock feel suitably threatening here. A toxic miasma coats about a third of the surface of any map, damaging human units and healing aliens. And while natural wonders are conspicuously absent--robbing players of part of the draw of exploring a new planet--the varied terrain is full of curious features like resource pods, ruins and alien skeletons to seek out. The land is pock-marked with craters and chasms, the grasslands have a sickly cast to them, and I'm still trying to get comfortable with the idea of constructing a paddock for giant beetles.But you're probably going to have to manifest some destiny sooner or later, because advancement in Beyond Earth necessitates subscription to a belief system and two of the three available are less than concerned with preserving indigenous species. So-called affinities push your development towards divergent goals: Purity, Supremacy, or Harmony. It's a choice between Terran, Protoss, or Zerg, really. Purity marks a civilization that concerns itself with recreating the comforts of home and preserving humanity in a more-or-less recognizable state. Supremacy is a technocratic zealotry that comes with all the haughtiness you'd expect--really, its units bear names like "Educator" and "Prophet." Harmony is there for us Truffula Tree-huggers, and since it lets you ride an alien like a horse and sic giant space katydids on your enemy's cities, I'd say it's the clear choice for the discerning Fremen. Interestingly, the text that accompanies each new affinity level shifts in tone along...[/quote]http://www.gamespot.com/reviews/civilization-beyond-earth-review/1900-6415923/ [i]Posted 18 minutes ago ago via www.gamespot.com.[/i] [spoiler]I am a forum bot who syndicates Destiny news from the web. I try my best but sometimes I make mistakes. I am currently maintained by [url=https://www.bungie.net/en/Profile/254/68974]dazarobbo[/url].[/spoiler]