Recent reviews by Thunderstanding

tl;dr - just wait. maybe one day, this game will be good. right now, it feels like an early access release that shouldn't have gone into early access yet. wait for a sale and don't give Firaxis money it doesn't deserve.

I've been playing civ for over 25 years since Civilization I. By now, no matter which civ game I'm playing, I have a set of things I like to do. Here's how that compares in Civ VII:
- I like to start by picking my civ and changing its name / adjective / etc. No such luck in Civ VII. None of that is customizable.
- Next, I like to select a giant map and look through the map options - maybe pick something weird. Well, in Civ VII, there are only 3 map sizes - tiny, small, and standard. The naming almost indicates there might be bigger sizes in the future, but it would likely require a rebalancing of the game. One of the mechanics is that there's a settlement limit. There's also no climate options. There's only 5 different kinds of maps, and the UI doesn't even show you what any of their names mean. There's also not enough civs for a giant map. Since the civs are divided into eras, and the starting era only has 10 options, even if there were a map sized for 16 players, there aren't 16 civs to fill it.
- When I start the game, I typically select my settler and hit B to build my first city. A hotkey that has been there since the first Civilization game. You guessed it - doesn't work. When I mouse over the button to build in a city in the UI, it doesn't offer any tooltips on what the hotkey is. There's no settings for this kind of hotkey in the options menu. This is just one of many signs that the game was built with consoles as a higher priority over PC.
- After building a city, I like to rename it to customize my empire. The developer already said they will address this, but this is inexcusable. The same exact thing happened when Civ VI launched. City renaming didn't exist at the start and everyone complained, so it was added. "Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it..." ironic for the devs of this particular game, isn't it?
- One of the staples of civ has always been Gandhi. An infamous bug led to Gandhi's AI personality favoring launching lots of Nukes. In this game, not only is Gandhi not even an available leader, but one of the win conditions is essentially completing the Manhattan Project. You can't even launch ICBMs. There's no computers, no helicopters, no jets. It feels like there's two entire eras missing. The game ends around World War 2 history-wise.

This game is incomplete. The UI feels like an unfinished alpha prototype. It has none of the customization options we expect from Civ games. It doesn't have enough starting civs. The game has no cold war, no nuclear warfare, no modern age, no computers, etc.

All of this can and likely will be addressed with DLC. I'm sure eventually it will be a good game with all of that DLC. That's no excuse. A game shouldn't require DLC just to be playable and complete. Shame on you, Firaxis.

the decision has been reversed.

review back to positive. democracy's back on the menu.

incredible setting, storytelling, and visuals

Absolutely beautiful. It's basically a puzzle game. Every room, you have to figure out how to kill all the enemies. It's hard. You will die A LOT. And in the process, learn how to get better, similar to Dark Souls. After particularly challenging sections, the game gives you a breather with some platforming that just feels really nice and snappy. This game has probably the best visual depiction of "The Cyber" I've seen in not just a video game, but any medium.

As someone who enjoys competitive RTS games, I was excited to try out a new RTS that seemed to have good reviews. And then I went into the game and started looking for hotkeys to build a house. There's a "B" to open the build tab.... and then no hotkeys for a specific building? What? What about building units.... nope. Excuse me? How can you build an RTS and not include one of the most basic core features of how RTS games are played? It makes me think the developers have never actually played a real RTS.

valve has done it again.

the same wonder from half life 2 is back. exploring the world and just interacting with it _because you can_.

a master class in game design. when you first learn to reload, it's clunky and slow. over time, you learn how to do it faster and in stressful situations while headcrabs are jumping at you. and the pacing is just right.

I rarely play single-player games anymore, but this is easily the best game I've played since The Witcher 3. The concept of using a dialogue system to "think" by "speaking" to various "thoughts" in your head is brilliant and hilarious.

this game is enjoyable when it comes to playing it, usually