The original Galactic Civilizations was a 2D sprite based game, why go 3D?
There are a number of usability reasons on top of the basic reason that it looks a lot nicer with a 3D engine. As much as we enjoy having the phrase “dated graphics” put into all our reviews, we thought this time around we would forgo that element of the article hopefully. But the real reason was usability. With a 3D engine, you get to zoom in and out for free without visual degradation. You can change the camera angle as well which lets people play however they want, and it makes it much easier to play the game at any resolution. My laptop does 1440×1080. I want to be able to play the game at its native resolution without it looking scaled. With a 3D engine, Galactic Civilizations II looks “native” at any resolution.
