I want to start off by Saying this is a civilization game. Of course there is some fun to be had here. I also want to say that this is a rather long post. For that I'm sorry so I'll give a brief verdict to those who want to do the quick read
(Abstract: game has a great design and intriguing basis to start a civilization game. Ultimately its held back by its lack of substance and civ diversity. Meaning..... Low replay value in my opinion. )
I also want to say that this is not CIV 5! iIm sick of seeing it.....yes it used the predecessors engine, but other than that this is clearly a different game.
I've been a long-time fan of the series and there have been some high and lows along the way...some would argue that civ 5 was a major step back from 4, others enjoyed the change. Sadly in the case of beyond earth I'm disappointed
I wanted to love this game; I think it has a fantastic basis to grow into something that is wonderful and unique on its own.
The game has been given a fantastic starting narrative and the alien planet is intriguing, I found myself deeply engrossed in this alien worlds discovery.... however that's where my wonder stopped.
What unfortunately holds this game back is its lack of substance and diversity. The joy of researching that new unit to lay waste to your enemies is sadly stripped away as your units upgrade over time. They upgrade depending upon what affinity you choose to follow.
The tech web is bland and the UI is horrid. When unlocking a new tech I didn't always know what was unlocked as units, buildings, and wonders are displayed by foreign symbols which don’t differentiate one from the other on quick glance.
Civs tend to play more or less the exact same as each other as there are no unique buildings or units..... yay???? Whose idea was that?
Currency has simply been replaced by energy.....
And then there's health
I found Civ 5's most irritating feature was its hugely penalising happiness mechanic which prevented massive growth of civilizations. However in that game it could be curbed by bringing in luxury resources to make your population happy.
In this game they have imported the exact same flawed mechanic from its predecessor and called it "Health." your Civs health will steadily decline as your city's grow and expand, to curb this effect there are no longer luxury resources to counteract this effect. Instead the only way to keep those Civs healthy is to invest heavily in Virtues (Like social policies) that grant your Civ health bonuses or build health producing buildings...... so guess what I was building most of the time yes even before important economic buildings and defences.
I suppose the alternative would have been to stay small and only have 3-4 cities....... once again yay????
One quick rant on diplomacy thanks for adding favours that’s a really neat new feature. Except well what do i need them for? Without the need to trade for luxury resources, and since no research agreements are available any more, truth be told what do I need other civs for then. Really because well they don’t have anything I'll ever need or want apart from their land. Has it been reduced to this? Oh and covert ops.....cool.......at first.....except my agent has been caught 3 times.....and no diplomatic fall out????? is that working correctly. Just checking so no incentive to not steal research from my best ally.....cool....steal away
I know I’m carrying on so I’m going to wrap this up. I really really wanted to like this game. Civilization is one of my all-time favourite franchises, however their just isn’t a whole lot of substance here to keep me interested for those hundreds and thousands of hours I would normally pour into a game like this. And that’s so disappointing...
I’m really surprised that Firaxis would release this game so "naked"...then again I guess it’s the way of modern games to ship incomplete and make you pay through the nose for those necessary "expansions" that actually make the game interesting and playable.