[caption id=“attachment_3224” align=“aligncenter” width=“480” caption=“Civilization IV: Colonizaton: My First Colony”] [/caption]

Do not be fooled by the Civ IV part of the title to the updated to the classic Colonization.  You do so at your own peril; well, your colony’s peril.  Colonization is primarily a game of economics while Civilization is primarily a game of domination.  In Civ you work the tiles around your city and either get “money”, production, or food.  In Colonization you work the tiles around your city and get cotton, tobacco, ore, sugar cane, and probably some other stuff I’m forgetting.  And, while in Civ you simply use the production to build units and city structures, in Col you take all these raw products and produce finished products: cloth, cigars, tools, guns, rum, and coats.

Got Spore on Saturday and I’ve been playing it more or less non-stop since then. It was very, very fun! A lot more fun than I expected from the reviews. I don’t blame the reviewers since the game had been hyped for the past three years. I think the cell stage sucks and I don’t know if I’ll ever play it again. It’s very boring and there isn’t much to do other than eat red or green dots. The tribal stage was also boring and needs some tweaking - perhaps a la expansion pack. All the other stages have been a lot of fun - especially the creature stage.