Posts with tag: civilization-iv-colonization

This week's release of the top 10 best selling PC games list in the US (offered as always by the NPD Group) may seem familiar as it mostly has the same games (slightly switched around in position) as last week's list. The only major change is that the PC port of Brothers In Arms: Hell's Highway has departed the top 10 after its debut last week.

After over a month, EA's Spore continues to top the list and we suspect the game will stay there until the release of Blizzard's expansion pack World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King. In the meantime here is the currently list for the top PC games for the week ending Oct. 18.

1. Spore - Electronic Arts
2. World of Warcraft Battle Chest - Blizzard
3. Nancy Drew: The Haunting of Castle Malloy - Her Interactive
4. Warhammer Online - Mythic/Electronic Arts
5. The Sims 2 Apartment Life - Electronic Arts
6. The Sims 2 Double Deluxe - Electronic Arts
7. Civilization IV: Colonization - Firaxis/2K Games
8. World of Warcraft - Blizzard
9. World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade - Blizzard
10. Crysis Warhead - Crytek/Electronic Arts

The NPD Group has revealed the top 20 best selling PC games in the US for the entire month of September and it's not a shocker to see that EA's alien evolution sim Spore is right up top at number one. New releases Warhammer Online, Crysis Warhead and Civilization IV: Colonization also did well in their debut months. Perhaps the biggest dissapointment was S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky. The GSC Game World shooter only came in at number 20 on the list in its first month, perhaps because of a lack of promotion by its publisher Deep Silver.

1. Spore - Electronic Arts
2. Warhammer Online - Mythic/Electronic Arts
3. The Sims 2 Apartment Life - Electronic Arts
4. Warhammer Online Collector's Edition - Mythic/Electronic Arts
5. Spore Galactic Edition - Electronic Arts
6. World of Warcraft Battle Chest - Blizzard
7. Crysis Warhead - Crytek/Electronic Arts
8. The Sims 2 Double Deluxe - Electronic Arts
9. World of Warcraft - Blizzard
10. Spore Creature Creator - Electronic Arts
11.World of Warcraft: Burning Crusade - Blizzard
12.Civilization IV: Colonization - Firaxis/2K Games
13. Warcraft III Battle Chest - Blizzard
14. Civilization IV - Firaxis/2K Games
15. The Sims 2 IKEA Home Stuff - Electronic Arts
16. Diablo Battle Chest - Blizzard
17. Starcraft Battle Chest - Blizzard
18. Hot Wheels: Beat That - Activision
19. Crysis - Crytek/Electronic Arts
20. S.T.A.LK.E.R. Clear Sky - GSC Game World/Deep Silver

Fall is truly here. The Cubs didn't make it to the World Series again and new PC games make the NPD Group's top 10 best selling PC games list interesting to check out again. NPD sent out their latest list for the week ending Sept. 27 and Electronic Arts' Spore finds itself back on top this week after falling to second place last week because of the launch of Warhammer Online

Two new games showed up on the list; 2K Games' Civilization IV: Colonization made a solid debut at number 3 while Warner Bros. Interactive's Lego Batman came in at number nine. It replaces S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Clear Sky who slips off the top 10 list after just one week.

1. Spore - Electronic Arts
2. Warhammer Online - Mythic/Electronic Arts
3. Civilization IV: Colonization - 2K Games
4. Crysis Warhead - Crytek/Electronic Arts
5. The Sims 2 Apartment Life - Electronic Arts
6. World of Warcraft Battle Chest - Blizzard
7. World of Warcraft - Blizzard
8. The Sims 2 Double Deluxe - Electronic Arts
9. Lego Batman - Traveller's Tales/Warner Bros. Interactive
10. World of Warcraft: Burning Crusade - Blizzard

When it comes to a particularly good game, what matters most? I'm not talking about the old checklist videogame reviewers used to rely on -- and often still do -- such as music, graphics, presentation, etc. What I'm getting at here are the qualities which make a game stand above the rest in our collective minds. I've boiled it down to five particular areas in which I think a game needs to nail down in order to be more than the sum of its parts.

Next week the latest game from the Sid Meier game factory Firaxis heads to shelves. It's the PC exclusive Civilization IV: Colonization and as we have reported on before it's basically a remake of the 1990's Microprose title Sid Meier's Colonization with the Civilization IV engine. However before you throw down some pre-order money, the Gamersgate download service has a deal they want to talk to you about in the alley.

"Psst...come here, man. You want Civilization IV: Colonization? Of course you do. You are addicted to that Sid Meier gameplay. So how about something in addition to that game? Yeah man. You pre-order that digital download from us at Gamersgate and we will set you up with Paradox Interactive's historical strategy game Europa Universalis III for free. That's a $19.99 game for nothin'. Are ya interested?"

While the game industry is beginning to understand that they can sell high profile games any time of the year the truth is that the time period between the first of September and the first week of December remains the biggest time of the year for new games to be released. 2008 seems to be no exception to this rule as PC gamers have a ton of new and promising titles to choose from this year.

So which games are we most looking forward to playing this fall? Well it so happens that we have created a feature gallery that has our picks for the PC game titles we most want to play in the next few months. That list include a long awaited MMO, a new expansion pack to the biggest MMO, an alternate history RTS game, a number of great looking first person shooters, a post-apocalyse RPG and a title that some are already declaring "the greatest game ever made." (in fact you can get a clue as to one of the games on our list from this custom case mode we saw at QuakeCon).

Our list of games is ordered by their scheduled release dates. Keep in mind while checking our picks that release dates can and do change at the last minute. Our picks represent the best info on these dates at the time of the posting of this article but if any changes are announced afterward we will report on them on the news site.

Click on the image above to continue reading "Most Anticipated Fall 2008 PC Games"

The console release of Sid Meier's Civilization: Revolution seemed to sell well last month according to NPD Group info but PC gamers are still excited to get their hands on Sid Meier's Civilization IV: Colonization. The Firaxis Games developed title, which is basically a stand alone total conversion of Civ IV, is due out this fall.

The game's publisher 2K Games sent out some new screenshots of the title which is a (sort-of) remake of the 1990's PC game Sid Meier's Colonization with players heading out to the New World to meet the natives, establish colonies and trade and more. Look for multiplayer and mod tools to be part of the mix as well. 2K Games has yet to announce a specific release date beyond fall 2008.

On Tuesday, in our last thrilling episode of Big Download's most anticipated PC games for E3 2008, we listed our picks for 20-16 on our list after revealing our picks for 25-21 on Monday. Which naturally means that today we will have our picks for the 15-11 games we have on our list that we are most interested to see at E3 next week in Los Angeles. Which games will they be? Will they actually be at the show? Will we stop making silly references to Saturday afternoon movie series of the 1930's? Stay tuned to find out the answers to these exciting questions and more.

As we mentioned previously, these are just our predictions on what games will be shown at the event; many of these titles have not been officially confirmed to be at E3 as of this writing. Also, there's no Activision or Vivendi Games/Blizzard titles on this list due to the two publishers bypassing E3 but a press conference by Activision on Tuesday during E3 is highly expected to show some upcoming titles from that publisher (and maybe Vivendi/Blizzard as well). With that out of the way let's look at our picks for the next five games on our list.

Gearbox Software's hotly anticipated Borderlands will be among the games presented by publisher 2K Games at this year's E3 conference. The game, which was first revealed late last year in Game Informer magazine, is an (apparently) open-world first-person-shooter with cooperative multiplayer, randomly generated levels ala Diablo, and some RPG elements. It's set in a Mad Max-esque post-apocalyptic wasteland. Gearbox and 2K have high expectations for the game; they hope it will birth a franchise. It's scheduled to release sometime in 2009.

2K will also be showing Sid Meier's Civilization IV: Colonization at the show. If you haven't been keeping up, just know that it's a remake of Sid Meier's original Colonization, which was released back in 1994. It uses the same basic technology as Civilization IV, but it's a stand-alone game with decidedly different gameplay. Oh, and it's a PC exclusive, so hurray for that! For more on that one, check out our hands-on impressions.

[Via videogaming247]

Last week we reported on Variety's game blog writer Ben Fritz's claims that the upcoming 2K Games' strategy title Civilization IV: Colonization was "racist" because the actual historical colonization of the New World dealt with whole native civilizations being attacked and nearly wiped out by the European colonists. Fritz received a comment from developer Firaxis Games who state in part that the game " . . . treats the events of that time with respect and care" and added that "players can and should make their own moral judgments."

Fritz also posted up his own follow-up post where he defends his position against the game's premise, stating, "If you want to deal with the reality of colonization, that's cool. But it seems to me the bare minimum to achieve that would be including the option to look at events -- or in the case of a game, play -- as the people being colonized. That's not an option here." While you may not be able to play as natives, according to this PC Gamer preview (via GamesRadar), the natives can certainly beat you if you decided to take them on unprepared. Therefore we are still not seeing the real difference between this kind of a game and a regular historical strategy war game where tons of people are killed on each side.