Civilization IV: Beyond the Sword
Review
The biggest Civ expansion pack ever
by Sergio Brinkhuis
reviewed on PC
Scenarios (cntd.)
NextWar introduces new futuristic units but throws you onto a huge map filled with modern day cities and units. You control one of four countries that are vying for world domination, each close to developing Next-Gen weaponry. Being dumped 'right in the middle of the action' was incredibly hard for me to get into the game as I had no emotional attachment to anything that was on the map simply because I had not built it. So it didn’t take long before I was bored and frustrated with that too.
Final Frontier is a nice little conversion that replaces the map and units with a space map and spaceships. Unfortunately most of the buildings have not been replaced, and building castles on a newly colonized planet... just doesn't quite do it for me. A good effort, but doing a full conversion might have scored better.
Charlemagne, on the other hand, is a lot of fun. You start with the 'Advanced Start' active, and after you have populated the area, you vie for the throne of the Frankish Empire. There are four other claimants to the throne, and for added challenge, there are a couple of 'Barbarian' leaders who may get in the way; wreaking havoc to your strategy, but never fear – they can't ever claim the throne. What makes this scenario really interesting is the addition of the Papacy. Rulers that hold the favor of the Pope are less likely to be attacked and without the Pope's approval you can't be crowned. You can keep the Pope happy by building churches, donating units and sending him 'relics' that pop up at random throughout the map. Another way is attacking those who, according to the Pope, have fallen from the faith but be careful; the opposite is true as well. Attacking someone who has high standing with the Pope is a certain way to fall out of grace.
Lots of content, but...
When I first started playing this expansion pack, I naturally picked the Dutch (being Dutch myself) and I was delighted to hear my units actually 'speaking' Dutch, as I had expected it to be the usual gibberish. I was, however, equally disappointed when I heard the German units speak. It was as if a Dutch person had heard the phrase "Ich bin ein Berliner" a few times and thought he could pull off speaking German too. As it happened, I had a friend over from Germany and asked him for his opinion on the voices. His response? "It sounds like the really poor accent you get in some US/English movies." and with that, he confirmed my suspicions that it was not the voice of a bona fide German. Perhaps the person doing the voice-overs took lessons from Madonna? (In her song 'Sorry' she tried to sing 'I am sorry' in Dutch and ended up singing 'I am sad' instead. You really should not have used Babelfish, my dear).
There is no question that the new features and additional content help to spice up the original game. Unfortunately, much of the game feels 'forced'. I can't help but feel that one can achieve almost the same results, simply by downloading some of the excellent mods and scenarios that the Civ community has created. Okay, strip the mods and scenarios away and you still get some fun additions to the game, but do they warrant that $30 that I was talking about earlier? I don't regret picking up Beyond the Sword but when you are standing in the shop, game in hand, consider that this expansion may not completely satisfy your expectations.
7.0
fun score
No Pros and Cons at this time
