Why is Civ 3 Getting Such Good Reviews?

[MarkG]

Originally posted by yin26
I still have some integrity intact

this coming from the man who has 3 quotes of himself in his signature

[Matte979]

Some say 10 some say 7 and few say 1 in anger..

I say 10 no debate. Its the most addictive game i played since
civ2 and the replayability is enourmous.

Short. As there is some truth in the posts that think its bad there are something thats good if magazine after magazine givs it good reviews just accept the fact that alot of people think that this is a great game. Those that like it do not post here all day becuase they are as mentined before playing the game.

/Mathias
To many experts on how civ should play in this forum is my view

[yin26]

Hey, I had the same way of thinking in graduate school: Most of my peers were off reading what OTHER people had to say about this and that book. I never really cared. Sure, I had to know the history, etc., but I wrote papers from MY point of view contributing a new voice to the discussion.

Thus, a number of profs told me they learned something from my papers. This taught me a valuable lesson:

Don't look for other people to do the talking for you.

[Alex]

Don't look for other people to do the talking for you.

Yep. That's why I bought the game, played it, and now I can say that I agree with the reviewers: Civ3 is a very good game.

This community is made up of people who have been playing civ games for... 10 years now? More than that, considering board games?

So I think that the truly hardcore civ gamer has come to a point of no return: you simply cannot rehash an old formula for these kind of gamers. For them, Civ must be continually evolving. Many have discerned that evolution in SMAC; others think that "that piece of garbage a.k.a. CTP", despite its flaws, introduced new concepts that -- could -- represent the future of civ games.

What happened when Civ3 was released? A game that should appeal "both to newbies and veterans alike"? A game whose major font of inspiration was CivI, released 10 years ago? Whining and moaning, of course. The truly hardcore civ gamer simply cannot believe that he/she is playing a game which still carries, on its core gameplay, the old civ formula from 10 years ago.

On the other hand, for many people, Civ still retains its addictive qualities, its epic scope, its "one more turn" syndrome. The old civ formula is still fun for a lot of people. It is still fun for me. I like the urgency I feel when I'm about to get an important advance, so I can "teach those [civ name here] bastards a good lesson". I like when I need a strategic resource and the AI won't trade it, unless I agree with totally unreasonable demands they make. I like when my military advisor pops up and says that the citizens of Pompeii decided to overthrow their opressors and decided to join my civ!

And, despite all that fun, I cannot help but think that Civ3 is not the big improvement to the series I would like to see.

So, no wrong sides here. There are not bad guys and good guys. As yin pointed out, it's all about expectations. But it does not stop there. I had fairly high expectations about this game, but I am not "disappointed". The game has already gave me enough fun for my money. I still think that I will play it for many more hours and days and even months. But one thing will always be clear to me: that Civ3 is not a big step forward.

And, for what it matters, I am satisfied.

[yin26]

There is no part of the game that drags on or is tedious.

That's an example of one of the reviews that gave the game a 9. Yes, people, these guys played the game a lot and feel the same way the average thinking human being does about moving 200+ units / turn one at a time.

[Alexander's Horse]

Most game sites give positive reviews because they depend on game makers for their existence - content, tips, info, interviews etc. Many of them also sell the games so they are hardly going to bash the product.

Another factor is reviewers might not be hard core fans and they don't play games for long before posting their review.

[Venger]

I suspect crack addiction is rampant in game review circles...

That said, the reviewers likely played all of one game, after playing a game of Wolfenstein, Quake3, Kingdom Under Fire, blah blah, blah blah... reviewers who give bad reviews ... don't get sponsorship from publishers. And that means ads.

Listen to the people who play the games. I prefer gamespot because the reviewers will occassionally dogpile a game, but because it's easy to see the average scores of users of the game and their comments too (Note CTP2 is ahead of Civ3 - ahem)

Anyone giving Civ3 9+ is uniquely unqualified to do so. There are too many BUGS to give it that high a score, much less overall game quality.

I think the poll on this site says it all - what was it, 50/50 last time I checked it? And that's what I'd give it, a passing 7.5 (assuming that's a C average). Nothing more.

That said, I'm likely posting my final thoughts on the game (my game is ending, and the patch doesn't address the core problems with the game) and will sell it or shelve it until patch number 5 comes out. Culture killed the cat...city defection is still bad, the game is anathema to conquest.

That's okay, I got CTP and SMAC patched and ready to roll...

Venger

[Seeker]

In answer to the thread title:

1. It's a 'Sid Game' and so there is somehow the idea that it is immediately given a point for this.

2. General tendency of magazine reviewers not to really pan games from large, ad-buying publishers unless the game is awful in an epic way (Daikatana, Outpost)

3. Reviewers tend to keep in mind the 'target audience' which for Civ 3 seems to have been envisioned as not terribly demanding.

4. As has been said, reviewers have a short time to play. Therefore, immediate 'cool things' are more important than subtler, long term things. Graphics tend to emphasized (the faces). A reviewer would probably not even notice that planes can't sink ships because they don't play as much as we do. They are more fixated on things like "OMG! There are RESOURCES in CIV!" or "Look at my little workers all swinging their shovels!"

5. Editability/Customizability SEEMS to be present until you actually try to use them, then again reviewers don't pay much attention to this.

6. Reviewers are not attached to Civ in the way that gamers are. If Civ has been your most played computer game for 9 years, then it IS ****ing important that there are no Mongols, and if there were they wouldn't be in Mongolia, and they couldn't sink the Bismarck with planes. We want POLISH, not just broad strokes.

7. Reviewers have not had the better part of decade to buy expansions, scenario packs, Gold Editions, ToTs, and CtPs waiting and dreaming of the coming of the Messiah, the Great Civ 3 which will fix all Civ 2s problems while remaining the same great game.

[yin26]

Yes, very well said! Might I add one?:

** The reviewers probably didn't pay $50 and, thus, see any future patches as 'icing on the cake' rather than 'bare minimum support' for the features they never even noticed were missing or broken.

[Downer]

I too agree that Civ3 is very addicting and many of the problems it had are now almost completely gone because of the patch. I think most of the reviewers are right on with the reviews, because I would defiantly give it at least 9/10. I just hope the Firaxis guys beef up the editor a bit more so we can have some world war 2 scenarios

[Ancientfool]

I think when they give civ a 9.8 they just forget to mention its a 1-100 scale. hehe

Seriously, its not bad but its not great either. Many reviews are inflated for many of the reasons listed by others. If civ *is* a 9.8 though then ive been playing quite a few transwarp 12 or 13 games lately.

[Trifna]

Because critics are looking at what it is and not it could have been.

[Expatriate]

Re: Why is Civ 3 Getting Such Good Reviews?

Originally posted by Daveraver
I mean, I think the concensus around here is that the game is mediocre at best, even when counting in the insipid patch...

I mean on average, even with the people that love this game... I think we'd all end up giving it a big fat 7/10 at the most....

Why then, do we keep on seeing 9's and 9.5's and the ilk? huh?

Anyone?

The concensus you are talking about is a very small group of very active gamers. For each person that posts here what he or she thinks, there are 100+ that have never heard of this site.

Also, I think its the nature of online communities to bash the game they love no matter how good it is. MMORPGs are the prime example here. Take a game like Everquest that has more than 300,000 people paying 10$ every month to play. If you ask the online EQ communities they will tell you that the game sucks and the publisher is the devil. Still there are 300K+ people playing and paying......

[Badtz Maru]

It's a great game, that's why it gets great reviews. The people on these boards who are slamming it have their own expectations of what the game should be - they seem to expect some combination of Civ2 and SMAC with tons of new features all custom made to fit their idea of how a game should be, an editor that allows you to do anything you can imagine - oh yeah, no bugs either. It doesn't, they are disappointed, and they are trying to get revenge on the makers.

But really, it's an elegantly designed game. More is not always better - Civ2 had lots of useless units, features that were poorly implemented, and was poorly balanced. It's been a while, but I don't think it even came with an editor, either. SMAC was an ambitious game, but was even more unbalanced and had an extra level of complexity that made it inaccessible to more casual gamers - I could not recomend SMAC to my brother or my wife, for instance (I also had some serious issues with other, more subjective aspects of SMAC, but I recognize it was at least a good idea).

Civ3 is better than all that came before it, especially when you take into consideration that the Civ series was NEVER a serious, hard-core strategy game. Everybody I've introduced to Civ3 has loved it - I let my 16 year-old niece, who is a casual gamer at best, play it and she was hooked, spent the rest of her visit playing it and delayed going home to finish her game. Her father (my brother) bought it for her and got hooked himself, had to buy a second copy so he could play too, and calls me long-distance for advice on the game. My wife, who thought the game looked boring, was finally talked into playing and now I'm considering buying a second copy so I could get a chance to play. She's never been into games of this sort (preferring action-RPGs and online RPGs) and is even beginning to delve into the editor to tweak the game to her liking. My 66 year-old MOTHER stayed up to 2:30 AM playing the game recently, and would probably play more if she could get a chance.

Firaxis has truly accomplished a rare feat here. There's a reason why this game is selling so many millions of copies. This is a GOOD thing, as it ensures the continuing life of the Civilization series.

[Expatriate]

OMG Badtz! If they ever add multiplayer, your family could play a 16 nation game all by yourself