Pax Prime 2015 Day 3 Recap

Civilization Beyond Earth: Rising Tide

Civilization: Beyond Earth is getting the “Rising Tide” expansion! I found myself, the more I played Beyond Earth humorously enough, missing MoO. So thinking of this, getting information on both games in the same day was pretty grand. The story is being brought more to the forefront, a serious issue I had with the game the longer I played; the story didn’t really seem to exist until the very end of the game when I was inches away from victory. The story is being pushed more in Rising Tide, as is a brand new, built-from-the-ground-up diplomacy system; your character creation will be considerably stronger too. I felt no ties to who I was in the original title, so I’m looking forward to seeing more about this. The game will be more personable, with more intricacy with agreements with other civilizations, personality and traits growing as you do. Hybrid affinities look to be interesting as well; the various affinities are all vying for dominance and control, so by opting to spread your influence over more than one, you can acquire some pretty badass units, like the Immortal: Humans merged with biotechnology, individually quite powerful, and good at soaking damage. I’m also really excited for Golems, which are humongous siege walls, walking forward to absorb ranged attacks, making your siege armies that much harder to slow down. The Aquilon was a really cool revealed unit, an air carrier featuring long-range bombardment; its agile hit and run style will make it a true pita to counter. Combat should be a lot more thought-provoking this time around!

X-Com 2

There was also some buzz about X-Com 2, including a novel by Greg Keyes, author of the New Jedi Order trilogy, a Babylon 5 series of books, as well as Elder Scrolls, so I’m waiting with baited breath to see what he produces as the prequel to X-Com 2, making it definitely canon. The various units appear to be getting a series of visual changes and updates: Sectoids, blended with human DNA, can reanimate any corpses they come across. Take out the Sectoid, take out the zombies. Chryssalids have more metal, bigger spikes, lots more poison; they can burrow and stealth via invisibility, as well as cocoon your soldiers. Berserkers lost their armor, but got bigger and meaner, able to fly into an insane rage. You can use these to push through enemy lines and cause a ruckus to do serious damage. There were others, but I won’t spoil them here! Also look forward to the Character Pool: The character pool exists outside of single player games. Characters you create can appear in other games, similar to Romance of the Three Kingdoms. That idea is amazing but also fills me with dread, that I make some badass NPC that shows up and kicks my teeth in. Firaxis had a pretty strong showing at their panel, and so later this year/early next year we can expect a strong showing in science fiction gaming.

Continue onto Blade: Sword of Elysion