Review by Arthur A.

Civilization V is the latest installment in the long-running Civilization series. I’ve been a fan of the series since the original game. I’ve played every game in the series, including the console-based Civilization: Revolutions and the off-shoot Civlization: Call to Power, and I’ve played the original Avalon Hill Civilization board game that inspired the computer game. You could say I’m quite the fan of the series. You could even say I was a fan of the series before the original game was released, because I was excited about the game from the moment I read the preview in Computer Gaming World. Empire building “4X” (eXplore, eXpand, eXperiment, eXterminate) gamesare my favorite game genre, and, while the Civilization series didn’t create it, it did, as far as I’m concern, define the genre, and still does. Just to prove how much I wanted to play this game, I will tell you I bought a new laptop almost entirely to be able to experience it at full glory. (Yeah, I’m a geek with lots of dollars, but very little sense. #rimshot#)

Not surprisingly, I’m going to focus on how it compares to the other games in the series, especially Civilization IV. Ultimately, my answer is “pretty well, though there are things I miss.”

There’s several very noticeable changes, some of which will seem quite radical to fans of the earlies games. The first is that the grid uses hexagonal spaces (“hexes”) rather than squares. That’s not a big change, and really doesn’t seem to make a heck of a lot of difference.

Possibly the biggest change is a limit of one unit per space on the “board”. (Well, one combat unit and one non-combat unit. You can have, for instance, a worker and a swordsman in the same space.) That very much changes the game. No more creating huge stacks of units to go to war with your enemies — you have to maneuver your entire army piece by piece. Now, that might sound tedious, but you’re also dealing with a lot fewer units than you were in previous versions of game — an army of thirty units or so is quite big in Civ V, but would represent a pretty weak military in earlier versions.

Also, cities can now defend themselves; you don’t have to garrison units in them (though it’s not a bad idea.) The key effect of these two changes are battles now take place outside cities a lot more, which seems more realistic. You can fight, for instance, a battle like World War II’s Stalingrad, but you’ll have to fight your way there first.

If you like the cultural side of the game, you’ll find that it’s been changed a lot, too. Rather than the five Civics, each with five options, there’s an elaborate set of trees that determine how your society functions. I very much like that addition to the game; it allows a great deal more customization of the type of society you run. Also, intriguingly, the larger your Civilization, the slower it generates cultural advances. This makes a small civilization a lot more playable than it did in previous versions. In fact, I won a cultural victory with a one-city civilization. (Just watch out for your more aggressive neighbors!)

Another big addition is “city-states”, which are best defined as “nations that aren’t trying to win and only have one city.” You can interact with them, but on a limited basis — you can bribe them to be your friends, do favors for them like attack a rival or covertly give them troops, or impress them by building wonders, but you don’t have the full scale of diplomatic options you do with “real” civilizations. I find the concept intriguing, but I wish the designers had included more options for interacting with them. I wonder if they wanted to do more with city-states, but deadline pressures curtailed their plans.

If there’s one thing I miss from Civ IV, it’s the religious factor. You could actually found several of the major world religions, spread them throughout the world, and use that influence (and, as often was and is the case, use religion to make yourself a heckuva lot of gold!) That’s gone gone gone. Religion is still a factor in the game, but no where near as much, and there’s no specific religions; you can just choose “piety” as one of your civics, and build generic temples. I’m a history buff and find the influence of religion on human history fascinating, so I was disappointed to learnthat was gone. Intriguingly, though, you can also adopt “rationalism” as a civic (though not at the same time as piety), which does make running an society of atheists possible.

The tech tree, which is one of the absolute core elements of the game, has some additions, but nothing too big that I’ve noticed. While I’ haven’t built them yet, it’s my understanding Giant Death Robots are an option for late game high tech civilizations. And really, what more does a game need?

Spies are gone from the game, but I rarely used them anyway. Apparently,they never were popular with players, so the designers decided to drop them.

I was also disappointed to learn they dropped the Wonder videos and victory animations — it’s just simple images for both. They’re often beautiful images, but dang it, I miss getting a big video finish once I’ve taken over the world!

Speaking of beautiful images, the graphics are quite pretty to look at, but I’m using a high-end laptop with a top of the line graphics card. (Like I said, new laptop just to play the game.)

Overall, I love the game. Now, likeI said, this is my favorite genre of game. But if you have any interest in strategy games,  particularly slower paces ones that reward brainpower over your ability to manipulate a controller, give it a try.

Review by Liam

As a TV-phile, movie buff and comics fan, I demand a strong story and and well-developed characters before I become a fan of a title. But as a video game player, I have found that these things tend to be lacking in most games. Sure there may be some vague reason for your character to do and say the things he does, but it’s really just an excuse to get you to the next level/puzzle/map.

One game developer has built a reputation for putting story telling at the forefront of their games and has found a golden grail of gaming markets. BioWare is responsible from some of the best stories to grace video games as far back as Baldur’s Gate (1998) and Neverwinter Nights (2002) and Knights Of The Old Republic (2003). These titles are legends among gamers and this year they have released their greatest and arguably best RPG (Role Playing Game) to date.

Using a similar style as Knights Of The Old Republic, Mass Effect is a combat oriented role playing game with the player taking the role of Commander Shepard. However it’s left almost completely up to the player as to “Who” and “What” Commander Shepard is. Aside from being a Human (which is essential to the storyline) the rest is wide open. The player sets the gender, physical looks and Military Specialization (aka Class) and also determines how Shepard will react in almost every situation and conversation in the game.

The combat system is very easy to pick up and can be scaled to fit most any player’s abilities. Casual gamers will not have a problem with the lower difficulty settings or it can be cranked up to provide a challenge to most any seasoned players. Plus there’s the tried and true “save game” right before a big fire fight just in case. Depending on the chosen class, Shepard will shoot, use his biotics (think telekinesis) or his tech (more like a magic system) to take down the enemies. There are quite a few battles to be fought, it is a video game after all. Thankfully the combat never gets stale. With races against time, conversations in the middle of a fight and other things happening in the world around Shepard and his crew, it never becomes boring.

The real star of the show in this franchise is the story and character development, those all important elements most of us look for in other entertainment. It’s very easy to get sucked into Shepard’s world and his (as well as humanity’s) plight. In this universe, alien races are dominant and humans are seen as a race that has just started to gain its sea legs. Most of the aliens don’t take humans very seriously. It’s up to you to change that perception. Along the way, you’ll also have to decide who lives and dies on your crew. With each of your crew members having their own background, personalities, specializations and relationship to Shepard, this is often a gut wrenching choice.

Currently Mass Effect has two chapters out with a third (and final?) due out in 2011. In the original Mass Effect, the player becomes the first human to hold the title of Specter, an intergalactic multi-alien task force of honor bound warriors. As you gain your crew and learn what is really going on in the universe, the story starts to snowball. At one point during the story, you’ll have the entirety of an alien race looking to you for survival or utter annihilation. By the end of the game the race for survival is fully underway, but far from over.

Mass Effect 2 opens with a tutorial section and a video that left this reviewer slack jawed and stunned. The combat system and user interface for the second chapter is greatly improved, as are the textures and quality of animation. But again the draw remains this incredible story about one person’s fight for the survival of his species and indeed most sentient species. As with the original, a crew must be assembled, this time from a much larger selection than in the original game. You and your crew then take helm of a ship and try to stop the invading forces.

By providing a great deal of control over the central character, even before much of the story is known, Mass Effect gets the player deeply involved from the beginning. Since most players are going to create someone physically attractive (which is fairly easy to do with the customization system), they will have a natural bond to start. Once the player starts making decisions and building relationships, that bond becomes even stronger. Once a situation is thrown up where they have to decide who lives and who dies, it matters. In most video games you just hit the Start button and respawn. In Mass Effect, when a character dies, they usually stay that way.

The player input does not end there. It’s possible to play Mass Effect 1 and make the decisions that effect things even far into the storyline of Mass Effect 2. I’ve played the game several times from opening to ending and gotten different cut scenes, conversations and even different outcomes of battles based on the decisions my character made, sometimes much earlier in the game. There simply is not another game on the market that lets the player have that large of an impact on the actual storyline, while also having a storyline that is as well written as this one.

If this sounds a lot like some large budget space opera motion picture, you aren’t far off. The cast of this particular space opera is a geeks dream come true. Keith David, Lance Henriksen, Seth Green, Shohreh Aghdashloo, Adam Baldwin, Yvonne Strahvshi, Martin Sheen, Tricia Helfer, Carrie-Ann Moss, Michael Dorn, Brian Bloom and Marina Sirtis all have major roles in the game. Well known voice actors Jennifer Hale and Mark Meer carry the duties of voicing Shepard (female and male, respectively). Think of the budget you would need to hire all of those actors as well as the CGI to make a universe like this come alive. Yet, BioWare did it their way and made it approachable to anyone who can swing a mouse and knows what WASD is.

There is downloadable content available for both titles, although the original Mass Effect’s DLC is now free. Mass Effect 2 separated the vehicle missions out of the core game and into DLC, but honestly they are not worth it. What is worthwhile are the two DLC characters that add to your party roster. Kasumi the master thief and Zaeed the old Commando both offer really nice back stories and Kasumi is a must on just about any team. The rest of the DLC offerings have been scarce, although The Shadow Broker adds a new chapter that I have yet to have a chance to play through. If they treat this game like the others that have had DLC, they will soon release a “complete” edition that includes it all for one price.

With Mass Effect 3 several months away and the prices on both Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2 dropping to affordable levels, this is the perfect time to check out the best sci-fi epic since Star Wars. Both titles are available for Windows PC. Mass Effect 2 is also on Xbox360 and coming soon for PS3.

There is a four issue comic that fills in some blanks from the opening of Mass Effect 2, available on BioWare’s website . Well worth the read for fans and newcomers alike.

Liam’s email addy is theclocktower at gmail dot com