Recent reviews by Rico

This review is coming form a long-time Civ fan. I have ~1,500hrs in Civ VI on Steam and have played since Civ I and I've played all the games in the franchise (both Colonizations, Alpha Centauries, and most of the clones like Humankind, ect). I want to make that clear because I think I might not have been the target audience of Civ VII. If you're not a long-time fan like me and new to the franchise, I think you should probably ignore this review.

I've been playing Civ VII a little shy of 50 hours now. I've beaten it a few times with different civs/leaders to just make sure it's not just me. You know, pretty much every Civ that's come out has been initially disappointing for me because I was expecting an improved version of the previous game and each time they've gone a little sideways by introducing new mechanics. Each time, I've come around pretty quickly once I've gotten my head around the new thing and really enjoyed it. Some have been better than others, but I've got loads of hours across all of them.

I kept playing Civ VII because I thought it might be like that for me. Maybe it will later with some patching, but I think some design decisions may have put them in a bad spot. My biggest gripe is the lack of data. The UI has been simplified, which I applaud, but all the great data that I loved from previous games isn't just hidden... it appears to be gone. I see all the additional combat bonuses for troops in my research tree, trade goods, general, ect... but when I click on the unit, where is it? I still don't know if multiple copies of the same good are cumulative or not.

This will make me look stupid, but it took me forever to figure out that factory resources are used in factories that are built in cities. I've been staring at all these awesome resources that I wanted to use, but it wasn't until recently that I figured out I had to build a factory to use them and that the slot opened up on the RIGHT side of the UI. I think this shows another issue that bugs me, which is the lack of documentation. There are a lot of mechanics, units, ect that I have no idea what they do or how to use them because the in-game documentation is completely lacking. For instance, how do you link settlements by rail? I've had railyards in all my settlements. I show rail icons connecting them all together, but the trade victory condition still shows no cities connected.

I could go on, but I'll list one more big issue in my mind. I love that these games try new things. I support innovation, even when it kind of strikes out. I can appreciate what you were trying to do, even if you miss. I don't appreciate straight up intellectual theft, though. Civ VII has a new mechanic that breaks the game into three ages and you select a new civ in each age. This mechanic was directly taken from Humankind and is more poorly implemented. There was some nod to innovation in linking which civ you could select to your leader and the civ you've just played, but it's so open that the mechanic is almost pointless. It's also not really Civ. Civ has ages, but having each age broken into a discrete mini-game is not very Civ-like. It's Humankind. If they had taken this mechanic and integrated it into the normal Civ gameflow and I think if they'd have not given you a choice on the civ you advanced to, but rather it was auto-selected by the one you were playing and your leading metric (culture, science, war, economy, population), I think that would have felt much more Civ-like and much less like a rip-off of someone else's idea.

Actually, I lied. Let me wrap up with some things I like. I like the new advancement system. It gives you a little bit of meta-game to enjoy between games and I think it gives opportunity for interaction through stream drops and such, which Civ really needs. I'd like to see this expanded with new cosmetics for leaders and civs. I think it'd even be cool to take some of those basic civ bonuses and allow you to unlock the ability to use them on other civs. Imagine a Somalia with UK's privateer mechanic from the last game. That would be hilarious.

Civ VII has some hits, but in general... I think it was mostly swings that missed. That said, I think a lot of this is because I'm a long-time player. I don't think this game was made for me. I think Civ has pulled a Total War and decided they want to target an unreached demographic. The simple UI and dumbed down mechanics does seem to be more targeted towards another demographic other than the existing core player-base. Though, maybe this is just the result of Sid being less involved and not a conscious decision by the studio.

Either way, hope that helps.

A great cozy game that combines several guilty pleasures into one simple interface. This is a game I tend to play for a bit and then put back down, but come right back to it several times a year. I've definitely gotten my money's worth out of this purchase.

As a fan of the series for over 20 years, I was really excited for this game. There's a lot that I liked about it as far as how it handles the dynamic generation of mission opportunities, along with lancemates and available inventory in any given system. The entire mech/lance-management stack was really well developed and a vast improvement on other games in the IP.

Where the game begins to fail is on the mission side, though. Oddly, the very thing that I've liked about every other MechWarrior game, this one really failed to capture. All the maps are reused from just a few templates, which is bad. Worse is that even those few maps feel stenciled and copypasta. Just looking at the map in your UI, you can immediately see a lack of attention to the environmental design with clear block-placement of features. What really bothers me about it is that it feels procedurally generated, which would be far more palatable if it were and they used that tech to create a wide array of dynamic maps on the fly, but they don't. There are crafted maps, and they feel lacking.

I was also frustrated that we didn't get more robust multiplayer options with the game. Obviously, this was to prevent competition with MWO, but it's so egregious that it leaves a constant bad taste in your mouth while playing the game. I miss the old days of cheesing a mech design and then running into a deathmatch to see how many kills you can rack up.

I'm recommending the game, but with reservations. Updates have improved it, but it still feels like they're more worried about taking customers away from MWO than they are about making this game what it could be.

This is one of those rare games that takes an existing idea and frames it in a unique and interesting way. I often look for kid-friendly games that I can play with nieces and nephews and this fit the bill well.

I've enjoyed the Subnautica games and this one is on the same great track as the first one, I believe.

A qualified thumbs up. I think the game is an interesting game, fun to play, and one of the rare options in the genre.

That said, I've heard troubling things about the devs banning game accounts due to comments on their forums and I've heard that they've clearly gone back on their promise not to sell ships of the line or anything above a 4th rate. That bothers me and is cause for some concern about the longevity of the game because it under-cuts the in-game economy significantly.

As is, it's a thumbs up, but there are some concerns worth voicing.

One of my favorite games. I play others, but I always come back to the latest Civ.

An exceptionally well developed game with delightfully subtle compexity to it that Anno 2070 couldn't quite capture. Just really love this game and hope they swing back around to making another like it one day.