(Review) The Orion Sector Takes On GalCiv

Ooops. Hyperlinks don't jive with this forum. review is here:

http://forum.orionsector.com/pages/galciv/galcivreview.shtml

further discussion here:

http://forum.orionsector.com/viewtopic.php?t=887

&#&@&%*@!

Third time's a charm?

http://www.orionsector.com/pages/galciv/galcivreview.shtml

* oh for a simple edit feature

Not a bad review but that Klemeroni really didn't seem to give Gal Civ anywhere near the benefit of the doubt you guys gave MOO 3.

Come on, how can anyone there complain about Gal Civ's graphics? They are works of art compared to MOO 3. Or how bout the openint cut scene? Gal Civ's doesn't stutter and has sound effects at least.

Or how bout the aliens in the diplomacy? The MOO 3 ones never change and it's obnoxious. In Gal Civ they change based on your relations and I are much more tasteful.

What did Klemeroni give MOO 3? I remember like a 9.2 or something? A game in which the computer players COULD NOT INVADE PLANETS. Your review and DireWolf's seemed pretty fair but Klemeroni's read slightly like a MOO 3 fan boy digging into a game he would never have bought any way.

just my 2 cents.

Those reviews don't seem too overly positive to me and semi bias towards MoO. I think it would be best to wait on more professional reviews if you are deciding to purchase the game based on them.

..That essentially mirrors my impression as well. How in the world could any sane person who plays master of orion 3 complain about the graphics in galactic civilizations?

..Am I the only person who has played moo 3 and the beta of galciv and concluded that while moo 3 claims to have tactical combat that it is galciv that actually provides the player with more tactical control over units?

..In the bigger sense it is a decent review. I am not a GalCiv "fangirl" but it is hard to reconcile you calling GalCiv "decent" after the lavish praise that was in the original MOO 3 review. I think what OrionSector readers such as myself are keen to know is which game overall do you think is better? You say so. But the choice of word "decent" made me wonder. What 4X game should people play today? If not GalCiv then what? There's HOMM 4 which has no computer intelligence and is buggy. There's MOO 3 which is just plain awful. And there is GalCiv which even in beta, which I hope to update to the final version tomorrow, has the underpinnings of a real master piece in my humble opinion.

MOO 3 fans got a lot of mileage talking about the Orion Sector review of it. Conversely, the GalCiv review seems much more guarded except for DireWolf's part. But it also seems that 2 of the 3 reviewers prefer GalCiv to MOO 3.

I think given the circumstances OS should give its take on the two games. MOO vs. GalCiv isn't a matter of tastes. MOO is an awful game on many levels. I bought my copy of MOO3 off of Amazon.com. I went back there the other day and it's reader review is down to 2 out of 5 stars! It's a bomb. I would be shocked if GalCiv averaged anything less than 4.5 stars.

Bias? Leiavoia directly stated that he liked it better than MOO3 and you can obviously see that DDW really likes the game by reading his ending comments. The only person one who wasn't to happy with it was Klemeroni, but he still recommended it to strategy players. To me it looks like a very honest set of reviews if ever there was one.

These are good and honest reviews. They really tried to be objective and, well, each one has his own opinion about the game and this is good. As a chess, i am pretty sure i will like Galactic Civilization. But as Brad said many times, those 2 games are very different and may appeal to different kind of people.

When you consider the fact that these reviews are on an Orion fansite, they are pretty positive while honest about the portions of the game that do not suit their preferences. They are pretty fair in pointing out that things like the absence of tactical combat (which I like too) are simply design decisions that are consistent with the overall strategic emphasis of gameplay.

It is certainly fair to point out that Galciv is not your cup of tea if what you are looking for is ship design and tactical space combat, or for that matter spectacular graphics.



~SDC~

Very nice review Leiavoia! It seems to be a very honest review.


1. Will you do an update when the bonuspack is out?

2. It is only me or where you much more "optimistic" when you wrote the MOO3 review?

I think the problem is not the review on its own but when it's compared to the review on moo 3.

At this point most people know that Master of Orion is a bad game. ya, a handful of people like the game but overall it's a big failure. But OS was pretty unrestricted in their praise for it.

The review of gal civ makes me think that gal civ is paying for the sins of moo 3. That they don't want to be too positive about the gameso that they don't look bad.

The problem with that is people are going to comprae this review to the moo 3 review. Even if Gal civ isn't your cup of tea, it is still a better than than moo 3 because unlike Moo 3, Gal Civ actually fully functions as designed.

one of the posters at the orionsector forum said one of the reviewers had a clear bias to galciv so we got one bias to galciv, one against, and the other left out.

seriously, they mentioned why they disliked what part and if i didn't care about that then i could ignore that part. plus they showed screenshots so if anyone doesn't think those are "poor" then they can ignore that part too. one reviwer said he disliked this one thing while another said he liked it. otherwise they said a lot of what they liked matched what i wanted. an excellent, honest review i thought. the three way review they have is an excellent way of reviewing a game. hope they do more.

about the two reviews:

when we reviewed MOO3, we had played it for about 2-3 weeks already. But the way we felt about MOO3 went in phases:

1) giddyness as we opened the box
2) shellshock as we got bombed with info and UI screens and numbers
3) stunned dissapointment as we felt our 2-3 year wait was all for nothing. this game blows.
4) hey wait, this game's not so bad. it *does* have some good features
5) i might even like this game a lot!
6) oh, wait, never mind. Game is not fun

so lots of neat features, but none of them ever came together. i still feel that way.

Now me and DDW came to this conclusion over about 4-6 weeks. Klemeroni on the other hand is still interested in MOO3. It's just that MOO3 was such a massive game that it took forever to "digest". 2-3 weeks of gameplay just wasn't enough to take it all in. GalCiv on the other hand, is much easier to digest. I didn't like it that much at first, but it grows on me more and more. MOO3 did the opposite until i finally couldn't force myself to like it anymore and i just stopped cold turkey.

I found the Orionsector reviews to very detailed. While I might not agree with some of the opinions, they were clear, concise and upfront about them. Biases were clearly stated, I don't know that there is much more that you can ask from a review. Good job, something I should probably say on their forum.

~SDC~

I get the impresion they are treating galciv as a replacement to MoO3 so anything that MoO3 can do but galciv can't is an automatic failure...even though brad has repeatedly stated that Galciv and MoO3 are very different games.
Plus when you see a statement including LAME in it 5 times you have to wonder about the objectivity of the reviewer. Stop treating it as a MoO3 replacement, treat it as a new Civ Game (which was mentioned in the review). If you think the combat is LAME because it isn't like MoO3 then you are probably not the target audience of the game which rather defeats the point of reviewing it.

Rather like a 4 year old reviewing a shakespeare play.

Hope I didn't insult anyone too badly there, no offence intended

~SDC~

I thought the review was partly objective but still childish in a few ways. The thing that I noticed that was totally absurd was listed in the Cons section. "Nothing truly ground breaking or revolutionary" is listed as a con. That is the dumbest statement I've every heard in a review. Are all of the thousands of games released each year supposed to be, "ground breaking and revolutionary", and if not, then that counts against them as a con. You've got to be kidding!

~SDC~

Personally, I consider the metaverse approach to examining the best players tactics then updating the game AI via post release patches as BOTH ground breaking and revolutionary.

Sith

~SDC~

good set of reviews. you had the whole spectrum covered: 1 fanboy, 1 hater, and 1 objective reviewer. comparing all three, you get a very good idea of the strengths and weaknesses of the game and more importantly what kind of player the game would appeal to.

i think everyone has gotten waaay too hung up on this Moo3 vs. GalCiv thing. who cares what they rated Moo3?

cheers

h

Don't forget releasing the bonus pack for free. That's pretty revolutionary. Most other software housed would sell it as an add-on pack. And as mentioned before, updating the ai with new tactics is sure to prolong the life of the game beyoned most other titles of this genre.

I agree SithUK, but even if it wasn't "ground breaking or revolutionary" there are a lot of good games released every year that aren't all that original.

~SDC~

Lol, you mean to tell me that games should only be reviewed by people who the Developers are targeting for the sales? MOO3 and Galciv are different games sure, but they are part of the same Genre, and seeing how Klemeroni is a fan of TBS games I don't see why his review should be snubbed because he has certain graphical or gameplay preferences. Other TBS players who may be thinking of buying Galciv may have the same preferences as he does, so in that way the review is usefull to them.

Err, my above post was directed to #14

>>Lol, you mean to tell me that games should only be reviewed by people who the Developers are targeting for the sales?

In my opinion? not ONLY but mainly. I wont argue the point since it won't help.

I was not snubbing his review, however when someone decides that combat is LAME blah LAME blah LAME blah LAME blah LAME beause it isn't in the game when from the outset it was never meant to be in the game seems a bit juvenille. (e.g. I am buying the game, I know that tactical combat isn't in it and was never intended to be but I am still gonna moan about it.)

Reviewing something and stating the obvious in a juvenille manner isn't (IMHO of course) not very professional.
There is no tactical combat
There is no ship design

If it were half arsed tactical combat or badly designed ship design then maybe but there never was any intention for that so why belabour the point with LAM blah LAME blah etc....maybe trying to be funny.

~SDC~

Bad grammer and typos there. Ash well

>>Reviewing something and stating the obvious in a juvenille manner isn't (IMHO of course) not very professional

should be

>>Reviewing something and stating the obvious in a juvenille manner isn't (IMHO of course) very professional

~SDC~

I'll step in here to defend Klemeroni. I have one criteria when I "review" something. No, I'm not a professional reviewer but when I am asked for my opinion about something I do try and give my answer based on an honest and fair evaluation. One thing I stress is recognizing quality.

Just because I may not like something doesn't mean it's not good and I consider that in my answer. To me, one of the basic cornerstones of a good reviewer is being able to convey the quality of something that may just not be my thing. It relates to professionalism and honesty on the one hand and versatility and knowledge on the other.

This is what Klemeroni did IMHO. From the review I gathered that Klem didn't really consider this his/her idea of a superior game, but if one does like this genre of game it darned well will be. What's wrong with that? It's honest and complementary too. I find this more useful than a gushing review of someone who just lives for 4x strategy games. Of course, in this case I bought ages ago so it's really preaching to the choir. Still, if I was on the fence it's reviews like this that would make me buy because if someone who admittedly likes something different still can praise the game then it's a no brainer that I will to.

Just MHO of course.

~SDC~

Jeff,

it might not help him but I sure am interested. I won't say I disagree with you because I've honestly never thought it through but I am curious. Why do you believe that a game should primarily be reviewed by someone who is targetted for a sale?

Is it the general attitude of the current reviewers ( as in, don't do what I suggest in the post above ), in which case I can kinda see it or is it more? As I said, when a reviewer is honest and willing to look beyond their bias, I find those reviews most helpful. Ones which merely gush or flame do me no good at all.

~SDC~