It has been almost 3 months since Xmas and I thought that I would do some followup on the games I have been playing, Civilization 4 and Call of Duty 2. The next game in my review-queue is the just-released Dungeons&Dragons Online: Stormreach.

CivIV

I had a rough start with Civilization IV but after playing it for a bit, I started to LOVE this game. Hands down, the best Civ game in the franchise. I was particularly impressed with the open-architecture (using XML/Python) that promises to offer a lot to the mod-community. I have already seen players add their own content/features, such as a Destroy City command.

The game has been totally rock solid with no crashes or noticeable bugs. The graphics are nice, the gameplay is much improved and the AI's are quite challenging. I have spent hours on this game and LOVED it.

Buy this game!

My one criticism is the copy protection scheme. I cannot STAND these CD-based copy protection programs. They are a nuisance at best and interfere with my other software at worst. I would MUCH prefer it if all companies would move to a download/online system like Steam that verifies my copy when I actually use it instead of checking for a CD. What a bother.

COD2

The other game I got at Xmas was Call of Duty 2. I got bored in the original COD and never finished it. Wave after wave after wave of German soldiers got a bit dull and mind numbing and I kept getting stuck at certain spots which I could not figure out how to pass.

CoD2 is much the same thing, including the points where I just couldn't get past unless I started the level over again. The graphics are nice and playing in a squad of soldiers is a nice change to the solo experience found in most FPS games. Some of the missions at the end of the game, when you charge or hold a hill, were quite fun.

I finished CoD2 and even enjoyed some of it. Overall I would give the game a mixed review though. While nice to look at, the game just lacked soul. An infinite stream of allies (dont bother to try to keep them alive, there are always more of them) and a seemingly infinite stream of enemies (WHERE are they COMING from?) is just not that interesting. "If 1 is good, 10 is better" just doesnt work for very long.

If you want to play a WW2 game, get Day of Defeat:Source instead.