Nerdicus SNES Review #61: Civilization

Title : Civilization

Publisher : Koei

Developer : Microprose

Genre : Turn-based Strategy

Players : 1 Player

Release Date : 1995

Estimated Value (as of today's date) : $15 - $30

Happy March everyone! You know what that means? First of all, only a few weeks (2 to be exact) until the end of my FIRST, EPIC, CONTEST, EVER! And if you haven't heard about it yet, you need to check out the contest tab above, and enter! Hell, I'm even doing a YOUTUBE subscription contest! All you gotta do is check out the video below for how to enter for your chance to win some FREE GAMES! Damn, I'm just GIVING everything away! Be sure to like, comment, and subscribe!

YOUTUBE CONTEST LINK - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFZg_elxp1Y

Secondly, PAX EAST 2015 is this upcoming weekend! As I did last year, I'll be sure to write up a retrospective about it. Here's hoping there are some epic games being revealed this year as well as some kick-ass swag!

On to the games, we're back at it with something I honestly only played on my PC back in the days of my youth. In fact, I didn't even know they released this on the Super Nintendo, and a huge part of me is thinking that this might be a bad port. For me, RTS games are really only effective on the PC. After all, keyboard / mouse microing and macroing, or whatever, is critical to building up forces and managing armies and bases. Then again, Civilization isn't as hardcore as that. There's a lot more politics involved.

And yes, a game with politics CAN be fun, and CIVILIZATION is right up there with the best of them. After all, this is made by the RTS brainchild, SID MEIER. I decided to give SID MEIER a look up, and you know what, he's CANADIAN. CANADIANS are awesome. Shout out to my Canadian brothers up north. Watch out for them Moose..mooses...mices...meese..just plain moose. 

Back to CIVILIZATION. Of course, I loved CIV 2 a lot more than CIV, but all game series have to start somewhere. Seriously, what are they up to now? CIV 27? They keep coming out with games, and I haven't played a single one since CIV 2. Am I missing out on something?!

Well, if you ever wanted a chance to command your own civilization on the Super Nintendo, look no further than CIVILIZATION. That sounded odd, but yes you get the point. Let's build some armies.

The concept behind CIVILIZATION is quite simple. You pick out your starting "tribe" which is only a few settlers with the ability to make the most basic of camps and tools. Eventually, you'll discover new methods of constructing buildings, weapons, technology, etc. that'll cause your CIVILIZATION to advance. The goal of the game is to basically spread your civilization throughout the world and reign supreme by either allying yourselves with the neighboring empires or destroying them.

Now, there's pros and cons to becoming allies or enemies. Surely, you want total world domination? What's the fun in having friends when you can just take them over, am I right? Allies help in terms of trade and exchanging knowledge, but just steal it. It's more fun. I would say that in CIVILIZATION compared to CIV2, the idea of allies is stretched a bit thin, and it's much more entertaining to just amass an army and destroy everyone. Then again, it's also annoying when certain powerful units get their arses handed to them by basic drones for some bizarre reason. I'm going to blame it on some glitch in the coding process.

But it's not all about war. The main focus of the game is really about building your cities and uncovering the fog of war shrouded map. Ooooo that moment when you finally run into an opposing tribe sends chills down my spine! TO WAR!! Sorry, i"m a bit obsessed with combat. I've played to much Starcraft and Warcraft

You would think that the game is somewhat simple, with the idea of just constantly building up your cities and uncovering new secrets is all accomplished in a matter of time. Wrong. You've got a lot of things working against you. Your citizens may not agree with how you are running their empire, and they can revolt. Your researchers could fail miserably and uncovering new methods of building and you can fall behind in the technology race.

Trust me, it isn't fun to have a man on horseback, get shot at by some rifleman. 

Then there is the case of building wonders, where every civilization competes to build the one and only wonders of the world. (there's a lot of 'em don't worry). BUT, accomplishing a wonder before everyone else will grant you a huge amount of reputation and respect points in the game. After all, who wouldn't want to be responsible for building pyramids and the hoover dam!?

CIVILIZATION, while simple in design, is incredibly detailed in execution. You can't just focus on building an army, without enhancing your technology or expanding your city. The real goal, is to reign supreme in all categories, so good luck managing your time and your people.

I must say, for a PC port this game is pretty damn impressive, and really holds its own. Sure, it 's not as easy or user friendly as it is with a mouse and keyboard, but I found it surprisingly fluid for a game to be like this to be used with a SNES controller. 

Visually, it's quite appealing with very nice overhead map designs which are simplistic but detailed enough to know what you're looking at. There are also numerous nicely designed cut scenes scattered across the game that bring a nice element of accomplishment when you uncover something new or build something massive.

All in all, the game is one of the better RTS out there for the SNES, and for all you haters out there that complain that it's not as good as the PC version, well of course it's not going to be. It's a port. But for what it's worth, it's a damn fine one and a game that provides hours upon hours of enjoyment and replay-ability. And that's a win in my book.

So, who wants to go to WAR!? I call the Romans!

Final Score (out of 5) : 

Until Next Time, Keep On Gaming!