When comparing Sid Meier's Civilization: Beyond Earth vs Amnesia: The Dark Descent, the Slant community recommends Amnesia: The Dark Descent for most people. In the question“What are the best games on Linux?” Amnesia: The Dark Descent is ranked 22nd while Sid Meier's Civilization: Beyond Earth is ranked 114th. The most important reason people chose Amnesia: The Dark Descent is:
Amnesia offers immersive puzzles to the player by creating interaction that comes natural to the player. When a door needs opened, the player must pull their mouse towards them to actually open the door, same goes for drawers as well. It is through these interactions that the player can feel as if they are actually manipulating these objects instead of just pointing and clicking like so many other puzzle games.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Includes systems that add story and philosophical elements to the game
Through quest decisions, the affinity system and the victory condition you choose to pursue, the game asks what type of future would you build for humanity. The choices you make will impact both the gameplay and the outcome of the colony.
Pro Engrossing early game
The game starts by preparing your voyage through space by selecting crew, cargo, etc.
Players have a lot of freedom in what to pick or whether to choose a certain strategy which will impact the rest of the game. How you respond to the environment during the early game may very well shape how the rest of your campaign will go.
Pro Great music
Pro You are not locked to a linear tech progression
Pro Unique take on science fiction
While most science fiction games present one or two ways humanity could develop in the future, Beyond Earth presents six.
Human-Alien Hybrids trying to adapt to their alien planet.
Humans in Battlesuits and LEV weapons with a liking for terraforming.
Societies filled with cyborgs and androids.
Societies of people who want to create the perfect humans.
Societies that are supported by a power base made entirely of machines.
Societies that do almost everything by combining biology and technology to create bio-mechanical weapons.
Pro Great art direction
Pro Involved spy system
The player can send a spy to an enemy city in order to learn what that city is building, what they are using for defenses, etc. This will take a few turns in order to set up, but once it is done, having an inside informant on what competing cities are doing can be big leg up.
Once a spy network is set up, a spy can carry out multiple operations with varying results. A few operations one can take part in is stealing credits, technology, or even research. These are all things that take time to do on ones own, but can speed things up by taking some from other cities while also developing or earning your own.
Overall, this is an improvement over Civ V, where the spy system was a bit shallow, luckily it is quite fleshed out in Beyond Earth, which adds quite a deceptive layer to the gameplay.
Pro Immersive puzzle solving
Amnesia offers immersive puzzles to the player by creating interaction that comes natural to the player. When a door needs opened, the player must pull their mouse towards them to actually open the door, same goes for drawers as well. It is through these interactions that the player can feel as if they are actually manipulating these objects instead of just pointing and clicking like so many other puzzle games.
Pro Excellent, unnerving atmosphere
Much of the game is inspired by Lovecraftian horror wherein the player is constantly assaulted with their sanity being eroded as they try to regain their memories. Monster lurk within the game that are quite frightening and the whole game is sparsely lit with constant sounds surrounding them that could be eluding to their next encounter.
Pro Incredible use of sound effects
As has been mentioned, the atmosphere is incredible, and I was scared out of my mind the whole time. There's mostly silence. A floorboard creaks, a chain rattles, the shuffling of your feet on the floor, it all serves to take your experience to new, terrifying heights.
Pro Epitome of horror, but that's not all
The game manages to keep you tense at all times, but there's more. Even if the monster wasn't there, this would be a great game to walk around, solve puzzles, and read the letters. The atmosphere is just very well crafted.
Pro Tons of extra stories
Users can download and install mods/stories created by other users, which can extend the gameplay of the game by quite a lot. Being that these are custom stories, being able to find one that appeals to the player should be pretty simple enough. A good comparison of the top available stories can be found here.
Cons
Con Late game is slow
Growing your colony in late game becomes a bit of a slog.
Con Wasted potential
Beyond Earth had a variety of new interesting systems that, unfortunately, fell short of their potential. Units unlocked by the affinity system were only slightly different to what you would get otherwise so your decisions weren't as impactful, quests in reality worked as a choice of upgrade for a building, the freedom of the tech web ended constrained to certain paths due to goals set by the game, and artifacts ended up being unreliable due to their randomness.
Con Puzzles tend to be easily solved
Sadly the core of the game is the puzzle aspect but they tend to be easily enough solved, which makes for a bit of a let down for players who are used to or looking for difficult gameplay.