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Civilization: Beyond Earth review: Buy-in Alpha Centauri
Viewed through the idea that it's a standalone expansion to Sid Meier's Civilization 5, Sid Meier's Civilization: Beyond Earth streamlines gameplay in the long-running strategy series to enhance the pace of the historically-strapped franchise. As a spiritual successor to Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, however, it's a cut-rate disappointment. Beyond Earth is best described as an epilogue to the events of Civilization 5. Humanity has ruined the planet and must commit itself to starting all over again on another rock and potentially making the same mistakes. And so, various nations make conglomerate factions and shoot for another spherical mass to strategically explore, expand, exploit and exterminate (4X) one another. Why I wish Firaxis had never mentioned Beyond Earth as a spiritual successor to Alpha Centauri is that this game doesn't look like it was given the financial resources to kick off a new franchise. It feels like it had the budget of a Civ 5 expansion, where asset creation went into making a visually interesting game world, but not its overall presentation. The characters are painfully dull and inarticulate. The tech and wonder voiceovers are all done by one person, but in many cases are attributed to faction leaders within the game (who do have their own voices). The experience doesn't feel luxe. Firaxis has been the benchmark in accessible strategy games and it's owned by triple-A publisher Take-Two Interactive, but I've seen stronger production values from independent European competitors.
Civilization: Beyond Earth for Mac is still on the way, just delayed
Yesterday we ran a story announcing that the Mac version of Sid Meier's Civilization: Beyond Earth has been postponed for an indefinite, or undetermined, amount of time. We have since reached out to a source working on the Mac version of Beyond Earth for a comment on the story. While they cannot give a hard release date yet, they want readers and Mac fans to know that the title is still on the way. In their words, "coming soon really does mean coming soon." A release date for the Mac version of the title will be announced sometime in the near future. We'll let you know as soon as the information becomes available.
Updated: Civilization: Beyond Earth for Mac has been postponed indefinitely
Update: We reached out to a source working on the Mac version of Civilization: Beyond Earth for a comment on this story. While they cannot give us a hard release date yet they want readers to know that "coming soon" really does mean coming soon. The Mac version won't be available in October, but expect it to follow close behind. Some readers were bothered by our use of the word "indefinitely" in the headline of this story due to their interpretation of the word's definition. Indefinitely means for an unlimited or unspecified amount of time, not postponed entirely. Given the title had been pushed back with no new release date we felt the word was appropriate. This was a case of using a word's traditional meaning, not being sensational. We apologize for any confusion. You can read our original post below. When Sid Meier's Civilization: Beyond Earth was announced in April, Apple users rejoiced in the news that the game would be hitting Macs and PCs at the same time. Now with the game's release coming up on October 24, it appears that promise is a thing of the past. The development team at Firaxis, a division of 2K games, has updated the title's page on their website to mention that the Mac and Linux versions of the games have been delayed. Hopefully the delay won't last too long. Civilization: Beyond Earth was originally reported to be in development across all three platforms at the same time. You can watch some new gameplay footage from the title below. Thanks to Twitter user hwojtek for the tip.
Civilization: Beyond Earth not just the new Alpha Centauri
Sid Meier's Civilization: Beyond Earth is unabashedly the spiritual successor to Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, which Electronic Arts retains the licensing rights for, keeping it safe deep within Yucca Mountain for never use. We spoke with Pete Murray of Firaxis Games about how Beyond Earth will balance what Alpha Centauri fans expect with delivering a new experience for the uninitiated.
