Sid Meier's Civilization: Beyond Earth - Rising Tide
Overview -
'Sid Meier’s Civilization: Beyond Earth' came out last year; a new take on the 'Civ' franchise that saw humanity taking its place amongst the stars as spacefaring colonists. 'Rising Tide' is the game’s first expansion pack and promises improvements in diplomacy, sea bases, exploration, and more.
Video Review
While the engine as a whole remains unchanged, lots of additional art, models, and animations have been added in 'Rising Tide'. The synergized harmony units in particular look nice, what with their increasingly alien appearance. Nano units in the supremacy affinity have little robots floating around them, giving passive buffs to neighboring troops. New alien models are numerous and lovely, especially the marine brain corals.
Audio Review
This area has remained mostly unchanged from the original. The soundtrack is still excellent- it's at once airy and majestic and still digestible over the course of days spent in the game. The sound effects that pepper each turn are welcome and not grating. The voice acting maintains the high standard set by the base game.
Final Thoughts
'Civilization: Beyond Earth - Rising Tide ' includes a lot of great new content that fleshes out the existing mechanics of 'Beyond Earth.' While this expansion doesn’t take any big risks, and some new research or victory conditions would not have been remiss, it is a shot in the arm for the already excellent 'Beyond Earth'.
