civilization-iv-colonization posts

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.

Your daily wrap-up of the hottest stories in PC gaming in the last 24 hours.

	Call of Duty 5 news reveals "new" military theatre Computer and Video Games has become the first web site to reveal the first details on the next game in Activision's Call of Duty shooter franchise. The game is subtitled World at War and as expected is being developed by Treyarch. It uses the Call of Duty 4 engine as created by Infinity Ward. While Activision had stated the game would be in a new military theater the story states that's isn't exactly true; the game will go back to the familiar WWII setting but will take place in the Pacific theater of war (with a side trip back to Europe to see the fall of Berlin by Russian forces).
	Alone in the Dark completed, hits shelves later this month Atari and Eden Games' Alone in the Dark has gone gold. All work on the game is finished, and the discs are being pressed. It will be available at retail on June 20th in Europe and June 24th in North America. The extravagant limited edition package will be released on those days as well.
	Shipping this week: Hulk Smash! While releases this week are lighter than usual, a smashing new title is hitting PC (we get paid per lame joke here apparently). Based on the new film surrounding the popular Marvel character, The Incredible Hulk hits PC on Tuesday as well as the rest of the week's releases that include the first downloadable episode of GameCock's film noir style action adventure game, Insecticide and a free content expansion for EVE Online.
	Achievements coming to World of Warcraft? One of the Xbox 360's biggest innovations is the use of "Achievements", those cool goals in every Xbox 360 game that can be made with points added to a player's Gamertag score. Valve has added similar achievements to Team Fortress 2. Now comes world that Blizzard might be planning to add something like Achievements to its hit MMO World of Warcraft.