"Pretty good. It could be better, though."

SOUND: 8/10
The sound isn't really that bad. It changes automatically during the course of the game, for example, when one or more of your cities are having ''we Love The ________________(insert leader of government title) Day'' it plays some happy celebration-type song that I forgot the title of. When you, or some other civilization destroys another civilization, the song is a sad, funeral-type song (as if you would really be mourning the collapse of a rival civilization) to commemorate that civilization for one turn, and then it switches to a different song. You Consult High Council and there is actually sound coming from the advisors to make it seem like they're actually talking! Also, whenever you complete a Wonder, there is a short fanfare followed by a movie showing the Wonder and some melody or sounds attributing it. Overall, the sound isn't all that bad, but it could be fixed.

GRAPHICS: 8/10
Actually, the graphics should be better, and I would give this something more like 7.9/10, but oh, well, I just rounded it up. The Wonder movies aren't all that bad, but could be better. One of the needed improvements is the graphics of when some smaller (size 2 or 3) cities fall to enemy forces; sometimes, half of the city seems to be ''erased'' from the screen, and then suddenly pops back up again! Unless they were so creative that they added some ''dimensional warp'' places on the game map, this shouldn't be happening. The Alpha Centauri colonization movie is something I really like and think is really cool. Basically, the graphics in Civ2 are pretty good, more than average, that's for sure, so...

GAMEPLAY: 8/10
Civilization Choices: 7/10
Ok, there are 15 or so civilization choices in this game. I personally often pick Romans, Americans, or Russians. Why? Because they seem like the best choices out of all. The game allows you to customize them and change the civilization name, tribe name, the head of government titles, and basically the leader's name(which you don't even have to go to ''Customize'' to do, anyways).
Start-Up: 10/10
The start-up section of ''GAMEPLAY'' is excellent. The game gives your starting civilization one settler, or two, if you get lucky. Also, it may either give you just the basic science advances(Roads, Mining, Irrigation) or that and several more. If you get more than just the basics, then you will be ahead of everybody else in science, and maybe also in land area.^_^
Government Types/Choices: 7/10
This is basically ok, except for a few things. First, they made the Republic one of the WORST governments. They only made it somewhat good in the aspect of Money Profit. The Luxury, Science, and Tax rates are EXTREMELY UNSTABLE. For example, once, I was playing as Romans and turned to Republic from the hated Despotism. At one time, I had a bustling economy and science rates, and there was only discontent in ONE of my 6 cities. Then, the next turn, I checked on my Tax, Science, and Luxury rates window, and was shocked to find that my Income/Cost went from a booming 49/24 to a low 13/24!!! I discovered that my Science rate became 30 turns slower!!! And all my other cities joined the lonely dissidents of Antium in the rebellion!!! This prompted me to switch to Monarchy in order to have the ability to enforce martial law with my troops. Only then were the economy and science re-stabilized and the rebellion ended! Second, the game made Democracy so weak, that just one turn of continuing discontent in just ONE city overthrows the Democratic government, making even the most peaceful and prosperous Democracy in the game unstable and at risk of revolution! No offense, but this isn't Russia, probably the most unstable major nation in the world, in which there is constant disorder!! Anyways, this has a pretty low rating because of these and other reasons, but I don't wanna take up an hour to write everything.
Warfare: 9/10
If you're an expansionist or an aggressive military leader, you may be disappointed. Democracy and Republic both are pacifistic governments. I, personally, am especially disappointed at Democracy because, being possibly the best out of all 6(Anarchy isn't a government - Anarchy means LACK of government) does not allow warfare, and if you're about to COMPLETELY annihilate a weak civilization and they wanna sign a cease-fire or peace treaty (possibly as a scheme to recover from their failures on the front) and they meet with you just as your troops are about to enter their last city, your senate will 100% force you to sign the cease-fire and/or peace treaty, unless you have United Nations under your control, and then it's still 50%. The rest of the stuff about warfare isn't all that disappointing, so, I give it 9/10.

DIFFICULTY LEVELS: 10/10
Crediting the BALANCE OF DIFFICULTY AND NEED FOR STRATEGY in the game.
This is very good - there are several difficulties. I hate Chieftain, because that's for beginners, and I haven't advanced toward Prince yet, so I'm ''training'' at Warlord. Deity is the level for EXPERTS ONLY - CHOOSE/PLAY AT YOUR OWN RISK. You a beginner? You're a Chieftain. You want training? Become a Warlord. Want more challenges? Go to the more advanced levels. I'm happy at Warlord.

Final Word: 9/10
This is pretty good. I actually got an 8.5 on my calculator when I was calculating the average, but I rounded it up to 9. Almost perfect game, but needs revising. Too bad they're not gonna be releasing any patches and upgrades to it anymore... [sob, sob] But oh well. Now... Time to buy Civilization 3, hopefully much better.^_^

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 12/16/01, Updated 12/16/01