Call to Power II Preview
Will this Civilization spin-off be nearly as ambitious as the Sid Meier original? We tell you inside.
Activision's Civilization: Call to Power met with mixed reactions from fans and critics alike. Though the game delivered the familiar look and general feel of the Civilization franchise, it was not quite as polished as it could have been, and it failed to live up to its truly ambitious aspirations. Much of this has changed in Call to Power II, the forthcoming sequel that drops the Civilization name entirely but adds a great deal in terms of new features, design enhancements, and flat-out addictive gameplay.
Foremost on Call to Power II's list of new features is a revamped diplomacy system, which allows for greater delicacy or intimidation during dealings with foreign powers. Also new in this version are beefed-up AI moves and strategies, many additional units, better unit-balancing, and a wealth of minor interface tweaks that help make the game smoother and a lot more fun to play.
At its core, Call to Power II retains the same reengineered Civilization feel of its predecessor, mixing an empirecentric style of management with the basic look and feel of Sid Meier's turn-based classic. Long-time fans of the series will likely warm up to Call to Power II a lot more readily than they did to the original, while newcomers should easily fall under the sway of this very promising, very addictive game.
Like the original Call to Power, Call to Power II changes a few things that we've all come to expect from Civilization-style games. For starters, your scientific endgame no longer culminates with a trip to Alpha Centauri. After all, some other game already captures that whole alien colonization thing, so the focus in Call to Power II is the further exploration and exploitation of earthbound terrain and resources. Many of the future technological advances revolve around new uses for land and sea-based terrain, as well as many new combat units and improved means of production. And the game encompasses a 6,300-year span, so you'll have plenty of opportunity to explore new technologies.
The game still looks a bit like Civilization II and retains most of the game's basic elements - a tile-based isometric map, an all-important technology tree, the holy granaries that help cities grow - but Call to Power II is more of a major step forward for its own series than a rehash of the old. The interface offers easy access to all aspects of empire management, which is still the focus of Call to Power II, unlike the city-specific management of the old Civilization games. Although the beta we tested was a tad clunky when we moved from one menu screen to the next (the game seemed very far from optimized, and it was downright slow in areas), the basic layout of menus and option screens is very intuitive.
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- GameSpot Score7.2good
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Call to Power II Review
Call to Power II is definitely a superior game to Civilization: Call to Power, which should be enough to recommend it to those players who did enjoy the previous game.
- Nov 20, 2000
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