When comparing Sid Meier's Civilization: Beyond Earth vs Machinarium, the Slant community recommends Machinarium for most people. In the question“What are the best games on Linux?” Machinarium is ranked 8th while Sid Meier's Civilization: Beyond Earth is ranked 114th. The most important reason people chose Machinarium is:
The player is forced to move their character across the map in order to find objects of interest. This, coupled with the great sound design and soundtrack which also do their part in giving cues as to where the objects are and if the player is close, really help you immerse into the atmosphere and art style of Machinarium.
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 The gameplay is perfectly interwoven with the overall aesthetic and atmosphere of the game
The player is forced to move their character across the map in order to find objects of interest. This, coupled with the great sound design and soundtrack which also do their part in giving cues as to where the objects are and if the player is close, really help you immerse into the atmosphere and art style of Machinarium.
Pro Beautiful art style
Machimariums hand drawn graphics exude a very steam punk style that definitely has a very unique look by being all hand drawn.
Pro Challenging puzzles
The puzzles are quite challenging to the point of frustration but in the end give a sense of immense reward when figured out.
Pro Interesting protagonist
The main character and the one controlled by the player is just a normal, average, everyday robot. He doesn't have any special powers or abilities other than being able to slightly extend his midriff in order to reach high ledges or making his body shorter. He's pretty much an ordinary robot thrust into an extraordinary situation.
Pro Built-in hint system
For those that do find some of the puzzles too challenging there is an inbuilt hint system shown through "thought bubbles" on top of the playable character.
Every level has its own hint when pressed and it's usually a hint on where to go or what kind of object you need. Although it's advised not to rely on the hint system too much since it takes away from the experience of actually enjoying the game.
Pro The well-designed gameplay mechanics avoid making the game boring to the player
Unlike most point-and-click games, objects of interest in Machinarium light up only when the main character is close to them; this completely changes the way the game is played. In point-and-click games where this is not the case, the gameplay is usually reduced to aimlessly flailing the cursor around waiting for something to light up.
Machinarium on the other hand completely avoids this, keeping levels interesting and the player interested to the game.
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 Items may be difficult to find due to similar colors
At points in the game there are needed items that blend in too well with their surrounding making it quite difficult to actually see them.