I am a big fan of the Civ franchise, but for some reason number 5 just didn't raise an eyebrow when I found out it was in the pipeline. In my heart I had already accepted the reality that nobody really needs five installments of anything. At this point Im ready for the next thing, you know "It's kinda like civ only better" frankly i would settle for "It's sorta like civ only different".

Number five is nothing ground breaking, as far as I am concerned theres not much here for diehard fans. The graphics engine is upgraded and everything looks very pretty, but the game itself has only undergone minor changes. The newest concepts are the hexagonal tiles and AI minor nations. Other little tweaks include more in depth diplomacy and a new naval transport system.

Hexagons might make some sort of difference but I really didn't notice and as far as the stupid city states they are a pain in the ass. Im sure some people will like to keep them as pets but I prefered bulldozing them and adding them to my empire. A new feature which I actually found useful was the ability to turn conquered cities into puppets.

The puppet cites act similarly to regular cities only you cant control their build ques. Think of them as AI run cities that pay you gold. They can be annexed at any time but doing so adds lots of unhappy citizens. Of course lots of unhappy people generally lead to unrest and who needs a reanactment of the LA riots on their hands?

Old heads will also quickly notice military units and combat in general have been changed. Cities no longer need units to mount a defense against attackers plus they can bombard nearby enemies. Only one unit can now occupy a hex at any given moment. This changes the focus to a few units instead of hordes of units attacking in giant stacks. Strategic positioning and forts are now that much more important.

This new feature is not so much game changing as it is different. At the end of the day Civilization five is still the same lime flavored jello that you remember from when you where a kid. Sure there may be chunks of real fruit tossed in for effect but its still just rendered pigskins and cow hides.

It's still as addictive as curly fries covered in chili and cheese though so I am not ready to quit playing it quite yet. A few more days and I should be able to determine if it's ok good or great.

Its been a while since i played a console port but when they announced Street Fighter IV was ported to the PC I had to give it a go. It was one of my favorite arcade games as a kid, I remember being able to walk into the local coin up and actually walk away with quarters to spare.

That was literally decades ago todays game has graphics that are five times as good as the original. The classic formula hasn't changed one bit and it's as exciting as ever to square off against opponents and pummel them into unconsciousness.

I havent played WoW in over a year so I thought I would check it out before the release of the next expansion.

One of the nicest things about an MMO is the fantastic amount of time it takes to download and install patches.

When i started the  Warcraft client it greated me like an old friend that was eager to catch up.

Unfortunately the conversation went in a thousand directions and a billion bytes later I am still downloading patches.

@!()#!@(

Of course im sure it's gonna be worth it!

Or maybe not, by some cruel twist of fate there appears to be a never ending stream of patches the latest one is 1.2 GB. Shit!

 
EA Preps For Another Fleecing Of Spore Fanatics.

You will either be thrilled or pissed off by the fact a new expansion pack is coming out November, 18th. Spore Creepy & Cute Parts promises over 100 new pieces of content, including creature parts, paints, and new animations.

This Information Spoils The Storyline Of Assassins Creed Read At Your Own Peril!

I warned you, but you obviously don't mind since your still reading. In Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed you play two characters at once. One is Altair the other is Desmond. Only the Altair character fights, Desmond appears during the interactive story sequences.

Desmond sits on the animus. The guy by the window is a dufus and the babe is a secret assassin.