Civilization 2

Civilization. A game series that gets strategy games more worked up than if they were in a strip club filled with women in -3 armor. The games have been famous ever since their conception primarily because they were like a shining grail to "Oldschool" gamers- those who sat with dice and, instead of pretending their were Olgarth the Grey, they pretended they owned a small country. Think Risk, but infinitely more complex.

Sid Meier's Civilization 2 is the sequel to the hugely popular game "Civilization", which allowed you to control a country to domineer the entire earth. The game was notoriously hard, notoriously long, and notoriously fun. Just like any "Open ended" game, the game could go on infinitely, thanks to a huge conquest system, as well as a great expansive world to put s*** like railroads on.



Civilization is no different. Updated for the Windows/Mac user so you no longer are forced to boring and hard-to-use hotkeys, the game is leagues bigger and leagues harder, but pretty much the same old stuff. Basically, create country + build country + conquest = bigger country. And, you'll be doing a lot of it.

Civilization II utilizes an isometric field of view, which is quite nice for still being 2D. Of course, however, this inherently means that the game is tile-based, and... yep, turn based. This was pretty much the standard at the time this game came out. And yes, it does have the stereotypical issues of "Turn Waiting"- sitting on your ass waiting for a boring CPU to determine where to build that next town.

However, because there's SO much to do in Civilization, you really don't feel that bored of the turn based system. After all, unlike a RTS, you can sit there and watch your troops be decimated and have the crippling inability to do nothing- an actually action-packed thing. Nothing makes you madder than watching a whole huge crazy army bust into your continent and blow you to smithereens while you sit there sipping on a Dr. Pepper and wishing they weren't doing that.



On the flip side, the turn based system isnt perfect. Waiting is still waiting, and modern gamers of today are used to action. Take, for example, how fast paced the Age of Empires series has gotten in such a short time. Because of the relative slowness of this game, you will definately need to have godlike patience to complete any mission assigned to you.

But don't worry- like I said, there's a s***load to do. And there is. Negotiations, war, excavations, trains... you name it, it can be done. Sid Meier is known for his games dotting their Is and crossing their Ts, and this game is no exception. Basically everything you could do in real life is somewhat emulated in this game to some degree, mostly to an easy-to-use interface based around the turns based system.

Overall, Civ II is definately not for everyone, especially considering it's relative age. I mean, let's face it, it's older than crap now. However, if you're a strategy fan looking for some oldschool action, you can't go wrong with Civ II.

4 star(s) out of 5

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