Recent reviews by ScootyPuffSr

Wow, so I got this on pre-order way back when, and like pretty much everyone else, I thought it was great for the first couple hours and then it just kinda lost me. You just got a very strong impression that it was super rushed to be released. I tried sticking it out for the first couple patches, and everything seemed to be improving, but it just wasn't enough for me. I wanted to like this game so much, but it just wasn't finished.

Fast-forward to now, and on a whim I decided to put it back in my library and give it another go. Was I ever glad I did. NMS has totally redeemed itself in my eyes. This was the game we wanted. This was the game we thought we were getting. I started a new save just to walk through all the changes rather than trying to figure it out on an 80 hour toon. that was a solid choice. It took a little getting used to the keybinds again. In spite of how unintuitive they feel at first, they make sense over time. I was genuinely pleased that nearly all of the complaints I had previously must have been common, because they've all been addressed and rectified. I just wonder how well this game would have done had what I can only imagine must have been some investor or corporate douche pressuring a deadline not been allowed to make that call and allowed time for the game to be properly beta'd. Would have been a definite GOTY contender in my book. Thanks to Hello Games for keeping at it. I finally feel like I got the premium title I paid for. :D

I've been playing since Civ II, and this is one of my favorite franchises so I might be a little biased. Having said that, I think this is the best installment since Civ III. I love the new religious combat. Religion itself has been majorly overhauled and is now an interesting victory condition to persue. I think that's the biggest take-away from Civ 6 over all the others; it's actually interesting and fun to win by something other than domination. City building has also recieved a substantial overhaul, with districts and wonders being built outside of the city sqare (I guess "city hex" to be more accurate). The cool thing is cities can actually benefit from another cities district if adjacent, making for some interesting building strategy.

The tech/civic boosts and city-state requests are set up like mini quests and I really enjoy trying to stay ahead of the game with the boosts. It feels like that in between time- that boring civ time where you've uncovered the map and now you're trying to build your war machine or whatever and just waiting or moving units- it makes that time more enjoyable.

Really enjoying the government overhaul with being able to customize via civic card slots. Super easy and straight-forward to tailor a government to your specific play style/strategy.

The worker mechanic has also been overhauled with builders having charges and being consumed after 2-6 uses depending on how your civ is set up. While I didn't dig that at first, I remember end game in earlier Civ installments, and it always seemed that I would automate all of my workers as it just became too much to manage. So with the new worker set-up, that's completely done away with. Workers also complete improvements in a single turn from spawn, so there's that. I'm not going to go into all units. I already feel like this is TLDR. Let's just say that it's been made worthwhile to build more than just tanks and mechanized infantry. You'll want to build every different unit available.

I have been seeing a lot of negative reviews. I have seen a few glitches, but thankfully nothing that would take away from gameplay. A few GUI errors, a diplomacy bug that kept one civ on a huge map game from either liking or hating you (which actually came in handy for a game or two for some "less than honerable" actions on my part :D) IMO, I think that's just something we have to learn to expect with a major title where the primary objective is income rather than establishing a brand with a flawless title. Whenever a game establishes itself as a force to recon like GTA, Fallout, etc., you start getting into deadlines and business people that make decisions to release an unfinished title and cut testing staff to save money. It's a shame, but it is what it is.

I haven't even been in the workshop yet for this game, but I would find it hard to believe that there's not a modder out there somewhere that has or is working on an unofficial patch for the game. Don't believe the haters, IMHO this is the best installment of the franchise to date. Absolutely love it and haven't been able to stop playing since I bought it. Thanks Sid!

P.S. Whatever team was in charge of the Civilopedia this game: you are terrible and you should find new work. They may as well have just made the Civilopedia button link to and open a Wiki page. There's just not enough info on units- what tech unlocks them- etc. They probably just had one person working on it and it was like the person no one wanted to work with and no one liked because it was done terribly. Never had this problem with any other Civ game. Grrr!

There is a nasty lighting bug and shadows flicker regardless of graphics settings. The game is absolutely unplayable until this gets fixed. I play with surround in 6440x1080, which might have something to do with that, but as of now I can't play the game. I'll update my review if/when it ever gets fixed.

UPDATE:
No longer on a surround setup, so not sure if that ever got fixed. Does fine on 4k. Honestly, I want to say I hate this game and it's stupid, but deep down I know that's just because I suck at it. This game is intense to say the least. The only advice I could give is to try your best to make friends with people that don't suck. Definitely not a game to just dive into without educating yourself a bit beforehand.