gamerdad I did the most gamer dad thing ever, emphasis on the dad. I ordered a copy of Civilization VII with my airline points.

And it’s not that I’d given up on Civilization VI, but if you notice the dates on my recent posting you will also notice that I haven’t been gaming much at all lately. In fact I’ve had my head down MAKING a game, writing code and making art and putting together bits of narrative dialogue—and not playing much of anything at all.

So, that I had not played Civ 6 in a few months was not surprising. Given that I have a shipping notice for the next edition of this classic series and it should be in my hands by mid-week, I figured I’d take one last stab at the one that is currently installed on my machine. Either this will be a comparative analysis in the making, or as the next edition rolls onto my console I won’t have much incentive to play the old one.

Reviews, I acknowledge, have been mixed about 7, but with these epic long-running series one needs to weigh the reviews against the reality that a lot of gamers like what they like and as much as they clamber for innovate things, what they really want is the same thing with shinier graphics. My understanding is that VII is not that. It leans into the innovative. Any my thoughts on that matter are simply that if I was averse to new things I wouldn’t be a 48 year old gamer dad, now would I?

If nothing else, playing through a couple hours of VI reminded me that I could use a fresh coat of paint on the gameplay and the soundtracks and the narration, because as much as I like Sean Bean hearing him read the same bit of quotation about archery for the eighty-seventh time is starting to wear.