Sid Meier’s Civilization series is the best known real time strategy genre series in gaming today. The new installment Beyond Earth takes the series to new worlds.

There are eight civilizations (called sponsors in this game): ARC, Brazilia, Franco-Iberia, Kavithan Protectorate, Pan-Asian Cooperative, African Union, Polystralia, and the Slavic Federation (America, South America, France, India, Asia, Africa, Australia, and Russia, respectively.) Like in Civilization 5, all of the sponsors have different traits with none considered the “best” to play as. Preferences usually comes down to how a player likes to use resources.

Graphics are slightly improved from Civilization 5. They look nice, but the environments all look the same after a few hours of gameplay. The controls are the exact same as Civ 5, and most of the gameplay features as well. Although, there are a few new features that new and old fans of the series will enjoy, including the addition of quests, better spy systems, and loads of more techs to explore.

Unfortunately, Civilization: Beyond Earth feels like a game that wouldn’t exist if Civilization 5 had not been so successful. The graphics are about the same, the controls are no different, and the amount of civilization has been cut nearly in a half.  It’s a good game, just not worth the $50 asking price with this level of cut and paste work.

Platform: PC