Sid Meier's Civilization: Beyond Earth - Rising Tide Reviews
Sid Meier's Civilization: Beyond Earth Rising Tide is a well developed, superbly balanced, and refined evolution of the original. It's a classic example of what can be accomplished when developers and gamers learn from one another to make the best experience possible. If I had known that buying the original could have lead to this, I may have done so twice. Even if you only liked the first one you're going to love this.
A definite step in the right direction, as added complexity and variation from game to game complement a radically redesigned diplomacy system
Rising Tide brings other content to Beyond Earth as well, from new factions to new planet types. But these additions pale in comparison to the systemic changes Firaxis has made. There are bothersome issues with the new diplomacy approach, and some of these mechanics are too obfuscated to call excellent. But Rising Tide encourages new ways of thinking, and lends character to a very impersonal subject. That old Civilization mantra still echoes, just like it used to: One more turn.
Fans of CivBE will want to pick this one up. While nothing groundbreaking has been added, the new features flesh out some gameplay from the original, and add the new frontier of aquatic colonization. Perhaps a little heavy on the micromanagement, the overall pace of the game retains that "one more turn" quality.
Aquatic cities, a completely new diplomacy system, and hybrid affinity units represent just a few of the seemingly countless changes in this expansion
It's not often that I stare at a game's menu screen for a few moments just because it looks so good. That's exactly what I caught myself doing the first time I loaded up Civilization: Beyond Earth with the Rising Tide expansion installed.
There's still work to be done – the end-game still fizzles out unspectacularly, and it's disappointing that each world's exotic alien lifeforms still act as little more than troublesome barbarians – but Rising Tide is an excellent first step on the road towards a better Beyond Earth.
Nearly every complaint with the base game has been handled with attention, though the new diplomacy overhaul comes with its own unfortunate issues. But that aside, Rising Tide is an essential purchase for Civilization fans who want to give Beyond Earth a well-earned second chance.
To use a Civilization V metaphor, this is "Beyond Earth: Gods and Kings,": it adds a few new things, adjusts a few others, but overall doesn't really have much impact on the core game. The mechanics are still there, but it's sort of ironic that this expansion adds in aquatic combat, since the thing it seems to lack most is depth. It's a coat of paint, not a deep fix.
The new, ocean-based mechanics breathe some fresh life into Beyond Earth, but perhaps not as much as the new diplomacy and affinity systems introduced by Rising Tide.
Rising Tide is much needed but a bit shallow
It's a hard balance to strike, thematic purity with mechanical accessibility, and for what it's worth I think Rising Tide does the best that any game could hope to do with those two opposing forces as stated goals.
A mostly successful step out of Civilization V's shadow, Rising Tide is a fine strategy game that only suffers in comparison to its truly great predecessors.
'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'.
Rising Tide is a solid package, and in many ways, this is how the game should have been delivered when it first arrived last year.
A solid expansion addressing the right problems, but still shackled by its core game's choices.
Rising Tide's great new diplomacy and artifacts can't quite fix Civ: Beyond Earth's replayability problems.
A useful expansion that unlike most doesn't ignore the failings of the original, although even with the improvements Beyond Earth still isn't as engrossing as the real Civilization.
At the end of the day, Rising Tide accomplishes precisely what it needed to for the Civilization franchise: it provides a good reason for those players who drifted away to potentially jump back into Beyond Earth, and it provides a timely injection of new content for those players who needed something more to continue sticking around. There are still flaws with the overall experience, but based on this reasoning alone, Rising Tide must be considered a success.
Given the cost of this expansion I find it hard to recommend. £24.99 is simply too much to ask for the changes and I can't, in any good faith, recommend that. The highest praise I can offer Rising Tide is that it's finally moving Beyond Earth in the right direction. The inevitable Game of the Year Edition (maybe after more patches and another expansion) will no doubt bring many people back; but until then I'd wait for a price drop.