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Galactic Civilizations Demo Released
Galactic Civilizations is a recently released PC space-based strategy game (see our earlier story on it, or check out an elegant review at Gamespot), notable for favorable comparisons against the none too favorably received Master Of Orion 3. There's now a Windows demo (51mb) of Galactic Civilizations available, originally released via Gamespot, but also downloadable from Gamershell, Fileshack, and from Gametab's BitTorrents page. Not bad for a game originally developed for OS/2 back in 1994.
This game is really very fun, except it has a couple deep flaws that prevent it from being a classic. I played constantly for about 3 weeks, until it got repetitive and tiring.
A game you play constantly for three weeks sounds like a great game. In this statement the bar for "classic" seems to be set pretty high, and the severity that makes a flaw "deep" seems pretty low. What, did the control scheme give you carpal-tunnel syndrome?
Or do you mean that the flaws are so obscure that it requires deep understanding of the game to spot them?
If I burn out on a game after only 3 weeks then it hasn't even made it from the ok to good camp. If I still play the game regularly after having it for 3 months then it's probably in the great camp, and, if a year leater, I still play it regularly, it's in the classic camp.
A quick survey of the other five gamers present nets similar (though not identicle) responses, but we may just be weird.
Realities just a bunch of bits.
... and I must say it's a great game, they still have a few issues to iron out, but it's very playable (and fun if you like 4x games).
The support from StarDock however is awesome. They will be updating the game for an entire year after its release, and are giving away a free expansion pack for GalCIV in June (I think). Not to mention this is one of the most moddable games I've ever played, most of the data is kept in text files. GalCivs AI is one of the best I've ever played against. They will come from behind, they will spank your ass, they will fool you once or twice. They are updated to use tactics recorded from the saved games played by the top human players on the MetaVerse.
I can't wait till Elemental comes out.
Jaysyn
There is a war going on for your mind.