... and even more Civ based fun for everyone else
But where Civilization IV: Beyond the Sword really comes into its own is with the plethora of mods included in the pack. Ok, you could be a grouch and argue that you’d find these mods for free on the web but I’d like to bring up two points in defence of Civilization IV: Beyond the Sword. First, I’m too damn lazy to go and find them and second, though the mods might be based on freely downloadable versions, these are actually completely new, professionally created versions. Yep, that Firaxis bunch have gone off, found the modders responsible for the most popular and innovative add-ons and either gotten them to make a new version or gotten their permission to make one.So, just like some creative chaps gave us Quake Rally and Quake Soccer, Firaxis have, in essence, poached the best ideas from the bottomless creativity of the fanbase and turned them into superb, fully fledged extras that give an entirely new and worthwhile edge to Civilization IV: Beyond the Sword, making the game something greater than it was before.
Click for larger imageLet’s start off with the RPG style mod, Fall From Heaven, which gives you roughly five hours of play set in a fantasy dungeon world which pits you against dragons, goblins, dwarves, wizards and the like. Gameplay here feels like a weird cross between Dungeon Siege and Civ… It’s almost as if Civ IV had a naughty threesome with Neverwinter Nights and Dungeon Siege and the Fall From Heaven game is the lovechild of that tryst…
But if old fashioned dungeoneering isn’t your thing, how about zipping forwards into the future with Final Frontier? Here, instead of colonising new areas and subjugating lesser races, you’re colonizing entire star systems. It’s basically Civilization, but in space. And here the game mechanics have had a complete re-working so although the interface is essentially the same and the basic idea of building bases and running an economy are the same, you’ve now got to develop a whole new tactical strategy, especially when going up against an opponent of equal might. In fact, Final Frontier feels a lot like Homeworld, that most venerable of space strategy games, but it has a less desperate edge to it… which isn’t a bad thing considering Homeworld often left me feeling like I was on a downers version of Battlestar Galactiga.
Click for larger imageIf neither of these light your fire, how about Afterworld, which is an unashamed homage to the X-Com series. You take control of a group of organo-mech marines in a set of turn based missions with the difficulty ranging from hard to damn near impossible, much like the Commando: Behind Enemy Lines games. The basic idea is heavily inspired by X-Com with line of sight, ranges and abilities all playing crucial roles in whether or not you succeed. And, believe it or not, even though some levels are stupidly tough, the game is never unfair and you always know just where and when you cocked up as yet another marine falls… (Here’s a tip: never split your squad up beyond the ability to give each other covering fire).
If space based combatty fun isn’t your scene then why not have a crack at the more historically based scenarios such as Charlemagne? For those of you not up your history, Charlemagne is widely credited to be the guy who pretty much paved the way for Europe as we know it today (roughly) with both France and Germany owing their foundation to him. So if I were you I’d try and lose as often as possible… no, hang on, that means the Spanish and Italians will rule all of western Europe… erm, dammit. Anyway, he lived around 1300 years ago and had loads of battles so this is a campaign worth playing.
Click for larger imageOr how about jumping forwards 30 years from now and waging war in a high-tech version of Earth? The NextWar scenario is just that, a hi-tech vision of what a near future war will be like. So this is where hulking great mechs (think Dawn of War) come in along with tactical nuclear strikes and loads of cool gadgets. In fact, letting off a nuke, as scary as the real thing might be, is just about the most fun you can have in NextWar… but it does have the unfortunate side affect of killing all your units too near the blast… which is a tough lesson to learn if you’ve devoted your resources to nuclear weapons research instead of an even steady build up.
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