Raingoon's Review -- Last Word & Final Score!

[raingoon]

Well, that was my review. Actually this was my review:

Raingoon's Unusable-but-Totally-Accurate Review Part 1 (Intro)
Raingoon's Unusable-but-Totally-Accurate Review Part 2 (Ancient Era)
Raingoon's Unusable-but-Totally-Accurate Review Part 3 (Middle Ages)
Raingoon's Unusable-but-Totally-Accurate Review Part 4 (Industrial Age)
Raingoon's Unusable-but-Totally-Accurate Review Part 5 (Modern Age/The End Game)

I wanted to convey a glimpse of an average Civ veteran's experience with his first game of Civ 3. I think I was honest, sometimes gushing to a fault, sometimes complaining a little too stridently. In hind sight, I think the new air units being restricted to soften -- but not destroy -- other units, was smart. In all, the unit model has a nice rock-paper-scissors feel (air units soften, ground and naval artillery suppress while land assault goes in and eliminates) encourages an evolved level of tactical play in a classic strategic game environment. Bravo. All that said, my .02 cents having been doled out now in five easy installments worth exactly .004 cents each, I hope the Unusable Review will be of use to someone, somewhere.

In conclusion, it must be said that there are two final scores to give this game. The first you give for the benefit of newbies to the Civilization franchise (are there any out there?). Assuming no previous experience with the game, then any review on Civ 3 perforce must include all sorts of superlatives for the games that came before it. It scores a big fat MADDENINGLY FUN and ADDICTIVE 98%.

However, if you are a veteran -- and if you are reading this on Apolyton, you probably are -- the situation is reversed. In this case, for our purposes, Civ 3 must be considered only for the DIFFERENCE between what exists now and what came before.

In other words, the judging criteria amounts to asking, "What have you done for me lately?" And the answer comes back, "Enough to be very grateful for."

But Firaxis' work is far from over (see others as well, espec. Yin's review, and Korn's review). They did not evoke in me the same sense of wonder I had when I discovered Civ 1 -- but they DID evoke a greater sense of wonder than when I first played Civ 2, and for that I rejoice. They did not ruin what already worked.

No matter what type of gamer you are, even if you are a multiplayer fanatic, I still recommend buying Civ 3 whole-heartedly in its current state, without multiplayer. Even if you are a diehard scenario enthusiast, I still recommend it.

So, with my own slant hopefully clear to you by now (see above links), my final score for Civ 3 is -- 90% for veterans of the franchise. Go forth and buy (like you wouldn't have anyway) and enjoy!

raingoon

[Imran Siddiqui]

Thanks for a nice review! I enjoyed reading it all .

[Adm.Naismith]

Me too want to thank you for your different approach to the review. To be fair, reading every single part I get a different feeling of the game overall.
Considering I haven't the game (official disclaimer TM), but I'm judging from others point of view, I feel the game could be very good (in a range between 90% to 95%) if many promised things can be fixed, balanced... or simply completed as advertised

The best part (my Humble opinion) of Civ community seems to be sending back to Firaxis the message about the game needs for a main patch (call it enhancement, if you like).
If Infogrames doesn't let Firaxis to do this last effort, the game will lack to score the target it could reach.

The only thing I feel to disagree with Raingoon, is that the game can score better with Civ "newbies" than "hardcore" fan.
Browsing the board it seems to me that, while veterans must learn some new trick to manage the new AI and rules, are the new players that have more trouble with the hidden part of the interface, the graphic less great than RTS usual reference, the limits of the manual, the idiosincrasy of the Screen Resolution default, etc.

Without some vet help and a patch, plus a revisited FAQ/readme to fill the gap, I have the fear than in less of a month the game will fade to a 80% score with every new player that will unfortunatly miss any early "grip" with the best part of Civ III.

[Blunderdog]

Thanks for the review, great read.

I can tell how involved I get into a game by how I talk to it when it makes me mad. So far I haven't yelled "%$#@ Civ 3!," but I have called Katharine a bad name at least twice.

[Father Beast]

Beautiful, Raingoon.

now my list of essential apolytoner reviews is done.

Final result: I still want this game, but not quite as bad as I did earlier. there seem to be a few things seems to get in my way of true enjoyment.

1. corruption. it looks like they've put this in to limit large empires. sort of like Rah's rant about how in CTP2 you have to disband bunches of your cities in order to conquer the world because of unhappiness. well, in civ3, we seem to have corruption instead of unhappiness.

2. Editor. The editor seems more powerful in some ways, but a lot less powerful in others. the lack of ability to set civ starting points on a map, which was a standard feature in the civ2 map editor, for example. And the reports I've heard from some people that modifications will often crash the game. Dang.

3. and this may be a biggie. ICS. it seems that the answer they've given for players being able to win by ICSing, othere than the corruption mentioned above, is for the AI to ICS worse than the player! Somehow, I have reservations about playing against ICSers for my carreer in empire building. are they ALL like that?

But the rest of it sounds cool to me. Yes, I'm still vicariously teed off about the lack of multiplayer, but it personally doesn't make much difference.

I won't be able to get it for some time, but I definitely will, someday. maybe a patch or two will be out by then......

[Fancy Salami]

A very nice review indeed.

I like the personal touch.

[Deathray]

Well, Civ veterans will probably enjoy it more as its their type of game, but Civ newbies will be really excited about discovering the game. Civ 2 was my first Civilization game, and that first game on the random world was like no game I'd ever played before.

[Baloo]

Nice summation, raingoon. I would give 88% myself, because I was expecting an itty bitty more from the game than you, I guess. This is not just a sequel of any kind of game. It's the sequel of Civilization, the alleged King of all PC game (uh PC Gamer, Half-Life should go down from 1 to so # lower. It's an FPS and it doesn't have the same impact to pc gaming as Civilization).

We should expect more, and it shows.

[David Murray]

Originally posted by Baloo Half-Life should go down from 1 to so # lower. It's an FPS and it doesn't have the same impact to pc gaming as Civilization).

Ummmm? No.