Civilization: Beyond Earth Impressions

One of Civilization V's many virtues is its vibrant and active modding community.

Skillful amateurs have gifted fellow enthusiasts with everything from subtle graphical or interface tweaks to total conversions that alter the game's setting completely - A Mod Of Ice and Fire, which replaces boring old planet Earth with Game of Thrones' Westeros, is particularly highly regarded.

Sci-Fi offshoot, Beyond Earth, is essentially an official total conversion for Civ 5, trading fire, the wheel and loin cloths for Ridley Scott-style white, sterile postmodernism. The majority of the gameplay mechanics and unit types are lifted directly from the latter, with just a few slight alterations in terms of aesthetics and/or terminology, meaning the two are effectively different sides of the same coin.

My main gripe with turn based strategy has always been the monotony of often having to repeatedly skip turns until something interesting happens. In doing so, I feel like I'm not really playing such games properly, but often there's simply no way to proceed with your grand strategy until a certain unit is completed or technological breakthrough achieved.  Beyond Earth does little to address such concerns, but as with its fore bearers, in the end, the grandiosity of the task at hand and detailed yet accessible nature of the simulation win out on balance.

So similar is Beyond Earth to Civ 5 that choosing between the two really only boils down to which lick of paint you prefer. As somebody eminently preoccupied with the infinite possibilities mankind's future holds, I'd take the Sci-Fi option offered here every day of the week, but perhaps not at full price.