Lenovo X220 T Tablet test no. 5 Sid Meier`s Civilization V and Alpha Centauri played with pen and touch

And so you bought Civ V last weekend ... you are having big fun being a virtual megalomaniac .. but all that mouse clicking is a drag and so mid 80s in an Apple Lisa kind of way ...  well ok thegameveda finds all that mouse clicking or trackpad sliding totally square ... and I don`t care if it is made out of shiny new glass and you can do three finger swipes ... no.... no way does thegameveda put any faith in that hokey cokey mouse or track pad clicking ... give me a good pen and multitouch every time .. 


So here are two Sid Meier classics one old and one new , with tests of how you could control them using multitouch and pen input .  The pen input on the Lenovo X220T really adds finesse to touch control , even when Apple eventually move to a full OSX Lion touch Mac Air a pen may prove mightier than a 3 fingered swipe ( I can dream... you should see me in Apple Temples touching the screens of all the Macbook Pros and Airs ... not so subtly suggesting wouldn't it be cool if we had the touch control of an iPad on the screen or dual screen of a Mac Air.....who knows maybe Steve is watching from his dormant volcano secret base)

 First up Civilization V : 

and then we have a little Alpha Centauri gameplay which I still think is better than Civ V !

   




























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X COM ENEMY UNKNOWN DEMO REVEALS KNOWN UNKNOWNS

One game series which can take months to play through , more time than many people today spend on MMOs is the  Gollop brothers classic X COM or UFO defense series.Released on PC and with excellent ( and now highly sought after ) PlayStation versions ( the old grey flip top your grand daddy had) 

Then X COM got popular and publishers, greedy , the Gollop brothers left their franchise the origins of  which you can trace all the way back to Rebel Star Raiders and Nebula on the ZX Spectrum. The suits wanted X COM FPS games, X COM space combat games, X COM email games, X COM Rainbow 6 games, the Gollops departed but not before leaving us with the gem that is X COM Apocalypse. 

The X Com series has always been a victim of its own potential, so various versions the UFO Afterlight/Shock/ trilogy ensued, coded well but lacking the magic and the menace of the original Gollop brothers games. 

That menace and cold hearted ruthlessness returns in Firaxis XCOM Enemy Unknown , you will feel fear as an unseen enemy stalks you turn after turn and your corporate, science, political and military decisions made during the course of this game may not qualify you to run a mega corporation, but could indeed come in handy if Aliens do land outside your window...indeed Daniel Jackson...

From the demo it is not possible to see if the new X COM manages to retain the vast play fields of X COM, Terror from the Deep with its literally Titanic maps  and Apocalypse with an entire city. This is Firaxis though, so here's hoping....

That Firaxis were chosen to revive the classic gameplay of the originals has proved an excellent strategic decision, the new X COM plays like the old classic, with the power of Bleszinski et als Unreal Engine 3 being used in a unique way to create a turn based stragetic epic with real time cgi with the pace and speed of FPS games. 

Every time your fragile Hoomans make a dash for cover, as long as they run and that run is displayed as prettily as Mr Phoenix and crews dashes in Gears , as long as they are running your heart starts beating faster and you hold your breath .. will they make it ... ? Will they run in to an unseen ambush and what kind of Mulder pleasing monstrosity will be eyeing them up or frying them up with it's brain curdling microwave ray... And then it hits you the green or purple nasty that just Jackson Pollocked your lovingly trained elite soldier, has something you need and you send more of your squad to their doom until you get hold of it ...he tasks you and you shall have him and his alien weaponry.  Yes In X COM you get to probe the Aliens ( or what's left of them) ... you abduct them ... Mulder would have a field day....no wonder E.T. went home...

Alien rendition, torture, inter species war, mad scientists , politics and running your own version of Haliburton and quoting Donald Rumsfeld.  it is all here all wrapped up in the turn based classic magic game play of X COM Enemy Unknown. All accessed from an awesome almost Wes Anderson cut out side view of your base....

All in all this is shaping up to be one of the finest games of the year, will it have the 200 hour play time of the old classics..? We will have to see 

The best deal to be had is on Steam with which you get Civilisation V free and of course try the demo out for yourself..

this content is © and originated from thegameveda http://the-games-veda.blogspot.com/  if you are reading it from any other site that has not provided a link back it has been leached