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Reviews6
djs8994's rating
I bought this game ten years after it was released, and was addicted to it in a way no more recent game has been able to do. It is a very simple game to pick up and play for the first time, but its complexity is so deep you can be playing for many, many hours on end. In fact it is not unusual to start playing as soon as you get out of bed on a Saturday, have a brief rest, gat back playing and then realise that your weekend is gone. There really is something incredible about how involved you can get in this game.
The basic plot is this; you are given one band of 10,000 nomads, who are put in the middle of an earth-like planet except they know nothing about the layout of the land or if anyone else is living nearby. In these first tentative steps, where one turn lasts 20 years, it is best to build a small number of cities, well defended but put in place the fundamentals of a prosperous economy; irrigation, roads, mines etc. Then we can decide to colonise uninhabited lands, trade with other discovered civilizations, or declare war on them. Not that the other computer players need encouragement to make war. It is best to avoid contact until you are in as state to defend yourself. If all goes well your people will have built dozens of orderly cities around the globe, and have sent ships to the stars.
It is the level of choice which sets apart this game. Whether to defend your civilization heavily or try to use your resources to get rich, whether to use settlers to irrigate, or construct cites, or whether to use nuclear weapon to win a war, regardless of the massive pollution.
Although a simplified and slightly unrealistic way to show the growth of civilization from nomads to spacemen (wars do not last centuries for example), this is a very deep and involving game which I would recommend to all, either in its original, or in one of the similar sequels.
The basic plot is this; you are given one band of 10,000 nomads, who are put in the middle of an earth-like planet except they know nothing about the layout of the land or if anyone else is living nearby. In these first tentative steps, where one turn lasts 20 years, it is best to build a small number of cities, well defended but put in place the fundamentals of a prosperous economy; irrigation, roads, mines etc. Then we can decide to colonise uninhabited lands, trade with other discovered civilizations, or declare war on them. Not that the other computer players need encouragement to make war. It is best to avoid contact until you are in as state to defend yourself. If all goes well your people will have built dozens of orderly cities around the globe, and have sent ships to the stars.
It is the level of choice which sets apart this game. Whether to defend your civilization heavily or try to use your resources to get rich, whether to use settlers to irrigate, or construct cites, or whether to use nuclear weapon to win a war, regardless of the massive pollution.
Although a simplified and slightly unrealistic way to show the growth of civilization from nomads to spacemen (wars do not last centuries for example), this is a very deep and involving game which I would recommend to all, either in its original, or in one of the similar sequels.
It must come as a shock to anyone to have hugh grant bring up the events of September 2001 in order to sell a movie at its beginning. To use that actual event which each of us thinks about every day from now on to sell your light and fluffy comedy is pure manipulation of audience's emotions. Having that as your opening gambit didn't put me in a mood to enjoying this film at all.
It is a clever idea to have a number of stories interconnect in some way and have them all come to the same conclusion. I am sure this would have been a better film if Richard Curtis had taken maybe 3 of the better stories and rejected the others. The stories on offer here ranged from the very funny to the downright dreadful, and this was the most annoying aspect of the whole film. An example of this was the contrast between the story involving the aging rock star, desperate to find a hit single despite admitting it was awful, and a totally pointless story about 2 pornography actors having fake sex. The Bill Nighy story has the lions share of the films best moments and it was a shame the whole film couldn't be about his character. It just makes it more annoying that we see as much of this tale as we see Laura Linney's troubled woman and her disabled brother.
Out of all the stories (I think there were 8) only 2 were substantial enough to maintain any interest throughout he film, the rock star story and the one with Alan Rickman and Emma Thompson. The rest of the story lines included the cliched story about a best man falling in love with a married woman, which involved a rendition of all you need is love' in church which made me feel that all I needed was a nail to stick in my eyeball. We also had Hugh Grant being prime minister, which upset me more than any other part of the film, when he gives a cringe making speech about how great Britain is next to the US president The special relationship has become a bad relationship' is the gist of it. I couldn't believe how crass and xenophobic this was, and in real life I hope a real prime minister would have been laughed out of office for such a speech, but the whole country seems to have loved Hugh Grant for it in the film.
The worst story of the film involved Liam Neeson encouraging his son to break security barriers at heathrow airport just to say goodbye to a girl from his school, something he couldn't manage an hour before apparently. Oh and he meets Claudia Schiffer at a surprisingly competent school concert to make up for his dead wife.
Wouldn't the really existential thing to do at the end have been for a hijacked plane to crash into the airport terminal at the end when they are all having their lovey moments at once? To have Hugh Grant's voice over like at the start saying I told you love was all around but you didn't listen so we had to kill all the characters' This is not to say this is a totally bad film. There are enough laughs in the stories that work to make up for the ones that don't, but it still doesn't excuse the fact that half the film shouldn't have been made.
It is a clever idea to have a number of stories interconnect in some way and have them all come to the same conclusion. I am sure this would have been a better film if Richard Curtis had taken maybe 3 of the better stories and rejected the others. The stories on offer here ranged from the very funny to the downright dreadful, and this was the most annoying aspect of the whole film. An example of this was the contrast between the story involving the aging rock star, desperate to find a hit single despite admitting it was awful, and a totally pointless story about 2 pornography actors having fake sex. The Bill Nighy story has the lions share of the films best moments and it was a shame the whole film couldn't be about his character. It just makes it more annoying that we see as much of this tale as we see Laura Linney's troubled woman and her disabled brother.
Out of all the stories (I think there were 8) only 2 were substantial enough to maintain any interest throughout he film, the rock star story and the one with Alan Rickman and Emma Thompson. The rest of the story lines included the cliched story about a best man falling in love with a married woman, which involved a rendition of all you need is love' in church which made me feel that all I needed was a nail to stick in my eyeball. We also had Hugh Grant being prime minister, which upset me more than any other part of the film, when he gives a cringe making speech about how great Britain is next to the US president The special relationship has become a bad relationship' is the gist of it. I couldn't believe how crass and xenophobic this was, and in real life I hope a real prime minister would have been laughed out of office for such a speech, but the whole country seems to have loved Hugh Grant for it in the film.
The worst story of the film involved Liam Neeson encouraging his son to break security barriers at heathrow airport just to say goodbye to a girl from his school, something he couldn't manage an hour before apparently. Oh and he meets Claudia Schiffer at a surprisingly competent school concert to make up for his dead wife.
Wouldn't the really existential thing to do at the end have been for a hijacked plane to crash into the airport terminal at the end when they are all having their lovey moments at once? To have Hugh Grant's voice over like at the start saying I told you love was all around but you didn't listen so we had to kill all the characters' This is not to say this is a totally bad film. There are enough laughs in the stories that work to make up for the ones that don't, but it still doesn't excuse the fact that half the film shouldn't have been made.
This is a corporate promotion film masquerading as an in depth fly-on-the-wall documentary. Before I saw the film, the clips I saw were of either Roy Keane getting upset about losing a pub quiz and two leeds fans resentful of United's success. Two moments worth watching which last about 20 seconds.
The rest of the film revolves around, an Irishman in New York traveling to watch a game or some extremely boring dressing room footage and playing golf, all of which leads me to believe that most of the united team are even duller in real life than we thought they were.
Most of the film I was bored and sedate, but I was made livid by the glossing over of ManU's decision to pull out of the FA cup as holders, to go to some new tournament in Brazil (which they didn't win) to persuade FIFA to give the world cup to England (which they didn't). At the time it was huge news, that a team had for the first time opted out of the oldest cup competition in the world. The film gives us the corporate angle for withdrawal, none of the press reaction, and then off to Brazil. A couple of fans express chagrin, over this in the film but no anger, as it what actually happened.
For a documentary about a football team we see surprisingly little action. A handful of games are shown, with a couple of goals from them. From the outset we know that united will win the league because no other teams' games are shown. This in a film where 10 minutes are given over to a couple of vodafone executives being shown where their giant advertisement with be.
The rest of the film revolves around, an Irishman in New York traveling to watch a game or some extremely boring dressing room footage and playing golf, all of which leads me to believe that most of the united team are even duller in real life than we thought they were.
Most of the film I was bored and sedate, but I was made livid by the glossing over of ManU's decision to pull out of the FA cup as holders, to go to some new tournament in Brazil (which they didn't win) to persuade FIFA to give the world cup to England (which they didn't). At the time it was huge news, that a team had for the first time opted out of the oldest cup competition in the world. The film gives us the corporate angle for withdrawal, none of the press reaction, and then off to Brazil. A couple of fans express chagrin, over this in the film but no anger, as it what actually happened.
For a documentary about a football team we see surprisingly little action. A handful of games are shown, with a couple of goals from them. From the outset we know that united will win the league because no other teams' games are shown. This in a film where 10 minutes are given over to a couple of vodafone executives being shown where their giant advertisement with be.