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You might have read drunkgamers review of Civ3. Here's my review of their review.
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What a disappointment.
I like for a review to give me the facts. If the reviewer wants to opine about the facts and say that he doesn't like the game, no problem. But when he doesn't give it to you straight, his entire review, in my opinion, is rendered worthless. Buzzy Boy didn't like the game. Fine. It would just be nice if he had told us why.
The first four paragraphs of the review are a waste of bandwidth, the words of a writer who likes to read his own work. Buzzy tells us what a genre is. Hey, we've got dictionary.com if we need that. Why not just get to the point?
Finally, he does. After wasting a scroll, we discover this:
I have no reason to question the gentleman's veracity. I'm sure he must have played the game. Could he have been drunk perhaps? How on earth did he miss the new element of culture? Does he even mention culture? Searching for the term, you'll finally find it — once — in this baffling statement:
Excuse me? It is to laugh. Ha.
Does he think those borders expand because he has a Hippolite? Good grief. Even the most ignorant students of history and sociology understand the concept of culture better than this. Buzzy doesn't shoot straight about the cultural aspect of the game.
I began to suspect that he, like so many others, approached the game with Civ1&2 tactics and strategy, and found that he couldn't win. Shame, really. He missed out on all the joys that I and many others experienced. City after city defecting from the English to me. Conquering London with a crushing military campaign. Sending Elizabeth and her refugees to hide near the South Pole, under the Aztecs. Working out arrangements beforehand with the other world leaders to make certain I wouldn't be starting a world war.
Buzzy mentions diplomacy. It's one of the things he says he likes:
What is this guy, some sort of slacker who never conducted a business negotiation? You have to negotiate from a position of strength to get what you want. I wonder, too, whether he considers one tech an equal trade for another, no matter how much more valuable one is to a particular civilization than to another. What did he do, try to trade Alphabet to the Zulus and get Engineering in return?
Speaking of techs, it was when I hit upon the following lame observation, that I saw where Buzzy is coming from, as he lamented that they "concentrated on stuff I hate":
Moronic. Sub-moronic. Yes, Buzzy, you do need philosophy to develop stealth bombers. C'mere. Let me be the first to explain this to you. SCIENCE IS A BRANCH OF PHILOSOPHY, you ignoramus.
And that's where Buzzy is coming from. Ignorance. Ignorance of the game. Ignorance of history. Ignorance of culture. Just plain ignorance.
The truth? Buzzy doesn't like it because it doesn't have multiplayer. He did the classic thing ignorant people do. He set up a straw man and then went to bashing at it like a piñata.
Buzzy didn't review Civ3. He reviewed his own daydream. And wasted everybody's time in the process.
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What a disappointment.
I like for a review to give me the facts. If the reviewer wants to opine about the facts and say that he doesn't like the game, no problem. But when he doesn't give it to you straight, his entire review, in my opinion, is rendered worthless. Buzzy Boy didn't like the game. Fine. It would just be nice if he had told us why.
The first four paragraphs of the review are a waste of bandwidth, the words of a writer who likes to read his own work. Buzzy tells us what a genre is. Hey, we've got dictionary.com if we need that. Why not just get to the point?
Finally, he does. After wasting a scroll, we discover this:
And that's where Civ 3 falls short. It adds nothing new. It's essentially the same game I played in 1993 but with better graphics.
This [unique units] is the best way to insert real life culture into the game.
Does he think those borders expand because he has a Hippolite? Good grief. Even the most ignorant students of history and sociology understand the concept of culture better than this. Buzzy doesn't shoot straight about the cultural aspect of the game.
I began to suspect that he, like so many others, approached the game with Civ1&2 tactics and strategy, and found that he couldn't win. Shame, really. He missed out on all the joys that I and many others experienced. City after city defecting from the English to me. Conquering London with a crushing military campaign. Sending Elizabeth and her refugees to hide near the South Pole, under the Aztecs. Working out arrangements beforehand with the other world leaders to make certain I wouldn't be starting a world war.
Buzzy mentions diplomacy. It's one of the things he says he likes:
You can actually bargain with the AI rulers more than in previous games. However, on harder levels they simply ask for ridiculous things during negotiations.
Speaking of techs, it was when I hit upon the following lame observation, that I saw where Buzzy is coming from, as he lamented that they "concentrated on stuff I hate":
It would be nice to devote your scientists to peaceful or war-like techs. Instead, you need philosophy to develop stealth bombers.
And that's where Buzzy is coming from. Ignorance. Ignorance of the game. Ignorance of history. Ignorance of culture. Just plain ignorance.
The truth? Buzzy doesn't like it because it doesn't have multiplayer. He did the classic thing ignorant people do. He set up a straw man and then went to bashing at it like a piñata.
Buzzy didn't review Civ3. He reviewed his own daydream. And wasted everybody's time in the process.
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