Civilization Network is coming to Facebook in 2010.
(Credit: Firaxis Games)Famed video game developer Sid Meier, best known for the Civilization franchise, announced on a Civilization Facebook page Thursday that a new title called Civilization Network is on its way to the social network.
According to Meier, he has been "looking at ways of expanding the Civilization gameplay experience to include solo, competitive, and cooperative play to take advantage of the uniqueness of social networks." Civilization Network will allow users to join with friends to "create the world's most powerful, richest, smartest, or just plain coolest civilization," Meier said.
Like so many of its predecessors, Civilization Network will welcome users into a life-like world. Players will be able to take on others in battle, share technological innovations, form a government, win elections, manage growing cities, and more. Meier also said that users can "spy on enemies and work with friends to create the great Wonders of the World." He didn't say how users will control elements of the game.
Civilization fans will be happy to know that users can play as often as they'd like in the game's "fully persistent environment" for free.
Meier wrote on the game's Facebook page that he'll be looking for beta testers, once the closed beta is ready. Civilization Network will launch in 2010 on Facebook.
If you want to stay up-to-date on Civilization Network happenings, join its Facebook fan page here.
Don Reisinger is a technology columnist who has written about everything from HDTVs to computers to Flowbee Haircut Systems. Don is a member of the CNET Blog Network, and posts at The Digital Home. He is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure.
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 | EPISODE 39 |
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As a Wii owner, I've spent a considerable amount of time playing my way through games that required me moving around the room, jumping up and down like a fool, and generally using my body to control the action on-screen. And while I enjoy it at times, most of it feels like a gimmick.
But there's no debating the fact that the Wii is the de facto leader in the video game space and although Sony and Microsoft have tried repeatedly to downplay its significance, the former may be announcing a new motion-sensitive controller to compete on the same level.
According to Gamesindustry.biz, Sony's latest foray into motion sensing will "break apart" and work in a way that's extremely similar to the Wii-mote.
Although I can't blame Sony for trying to capitalize on a major fad in the gaming industry, does it really want to enter that domain? Motion-sensitive gaming is nothing more than a gimmick that has a slew of hurdles to overcome before it becomes the next logical choice for controlling a video game.
... Read moreWhen I was a kid, I usually found myself doing one of two things: playing video games at home or trying as best as I could to attract every girl I saw. Was I a video game addict? Probably. Was a socialite? Yep. And you know what? I wasn't alone.
According to a report from Reuters, Daniel Loton, an Australian graduate student found that "15 percent of 621 adult respondents to an online survey were identified as "problem gamers" who spend more than 50 hours a week playing games."
But only 1 percent of those respondents had poor social skills and shyness, suggesting the cheerleaders in school were wrong: video game addicts are cool too.
Sweet, sweet justice.
The beauty of this new study isn't that it tells us something we didn't already know--I was known as the cool dude on campus for a reason, you know--but it helps us combat the fools who insist that video games are bad for children and hinder their ability to interact in the real world.
... Read moreAn interesting article from Kotaku today, discusses Ubisoft's intention to get into the film business and try to expand its offerings beyond video games.
"Our goal is to create a studio that will be very high quality, our goal is to try to get to the level of quality of Peter Jackson's Weta studio," Ubisoft's CEO Yves Guillemot said in an interview. "We have been working to train people, to recruit highly talented people and we are in test mode at the moment. We are going to make sure that we get to the level of Weta. We have a long way to go but in getting to that level will help us to actually be one of the studios where everybody has to go."
Peter Jackson, best known for The Lord of the Rings trilogy and as director of King Kong, is currently working in collaboration with Bungie to create a new game set in the Halo universe. The game is currently titled Halo: Chronicles, but no release date has been given.
Guillemot sounds ambitious and I applaud him for trying to do more with his business, I can't help but wonder if video game developers have any place in other forms of entertainment. Can they really create a stellar sitcom or a blockbuster hit at the theaters? Are they capable of publishing sci-fi novels?
With the way things are going in all of those industries, I don't think it's too far-fetched at all.
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Everyone likes to talk about the battle between Microsoft and Apple on the OS front, but that seems like old hat to me. Sure, there's certainly a battle being waged in that space, but is it really as hotly contested as some want to believe? Call me when Mac OS X hits 20 percent market share.
But there is one battle raging between Apple and Microsoft that many people don't even see. No, it's not in the MP3 player market where the iPod reigns supreme, it's in the home entertainment business. More specifically, the battle being waged pits the Apple TV against the Xbox 360.
Now I know what you're thinking -- "isn't the Xbox 360 a video game console and the Apple TV is a media device"? Yes and no. The description of each device may be correct, but the Xbox 360 description doesn't say enough about the console. Aside from its gaming capabilities, Microsoft's product performs many of the tasks already found on the Apple TV -- streaming entertainment, music, movies and TV show viewing and a hard drive that can store your favorite material.
And with an installed base of over 18 million that easily eclipses the Apple TV's 1.7 million installed base, there's no reason to suggest Microsoft can't win the battle and finally deal the Apple TV its death blow. And here's how it should do it:
... Read moreI don't know about you, but after playing through countless hours of video games saving the world in more worlds than I can count, I've grown tired of the same old thing. I can live with sword fights and looting, but more than anything else, I'm sick and tired of cutscenes that break up the action.
Can anyone give me one good reason for why cutscenes are really that necessary? Sure, they help move the story along and I can appreciate that, but I don't need fancy renderings of my pixelated heroes talking to each other when all I really want to do is slay some more beasts.
As far as I can tell, this idea of cutscenes, which was made brutally unbearable by Hideo Kojima in the Metal Gear series is nothing more than an attempt by game developers to display their graphical prowess and make a video game feel more like a movie.
I don't want a movie. I want a video game.
... Read moreIn the past, I've always felt that Blu-ray would win the high-def format war. After that, I wasn't necessarily sure what the future would hold for the format.
Would it be the success DVD was? Would it flop worse than LaserDisc? Would it cater to a slightly more advanced crowd but never reach the mainstream? Would it be a downright loser?
For a while, I decided to hold off from making any judgements until I could see how the Blu-ray group handled its victory. And while it has only been a relatively short amount of time since that win, the end is already in sight and the format has no hope of survival.
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In a recent post on the News.com blog, David Carnoy opined on the future of Toshiba and its ill-fated decision to back a losing format for so long.
Pointing to a Wall Street Journal interview with Toshiba's CEO, Carnoy extrapolated information from the discussion and concluded that because the company's chief executive said his company would "improve this [upconverting feature] even more, so that consumers won't be able to tell the difference from HD DVD images", Toshiba has no designs on a move into the Blu-ray player market.
Carnoy asserts that 2008 will not bring a Blu-ray player from Toshiba, but it may "change its tune" in 2009.
And while Carnoy makes a good point in saying Toshiba Blu-ray players will be available next year, I think he's off by one year.
... Read moreEver since I played my first video game, the thought of losing or dying was awful. After all, who really wants to spend a half-hour making their way through a dangerous dungeon only to die at the end and be forced to retrace their steps to get to the boss battle?
In fact, I disliked dying in games so much, I would often find it easier to walk away and do something else rather than risk the health of my controller after losing such an important battle. And while I would venture to say many would agree with my assertion, one study claims it's actually quite the opposite.
According to a study performed by a number of researchers in Helsinki, Finland, gamers actually like to die in games and actually prefer that over killing other enemies.
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