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[The Niles]

No I'm not excited about Quake 4. I'm not a FPS man myself either but I do like them on occasion. I would like to say that just because a game has come to a fourth fifth or fiftieth incarnation does not automatically become bad. For me the one, overriding question is, "is this game worth expense when compared to its previous version?". I do not know enough about Quake 4 to make that call but it has been a while since Quake 3 and there have been some big changes in FPS gaming (mainly the addition of vehicles as game play elements).

Sid Meier is himself a hype. The man is lauded by many as someone who can do no wrong and whose every project turns to gold. In my personal opinion Civ3 was the weakest game, when measured to the state of the gaming possibilities at its time of release, of the series. It only got an 83% score and it was completely deserved. I say this to illustrate the following; in all Sid Meier games I have played I have always found something dreadfully wrong. Something so wrong it makes me want to slam my head against a wall shouting, "Why, why, dear God why would ANYONE choose to do this?". Okay, over-dramatised but just look at the horrid unit handling in Civ3, the choice to not include multiplayer in Magic: The Gathering (still AWOL in vanilla Civ3 and horribly executed in its add-ons), the AI in Colonization, the bullshit story line in Alpha Centaury and the lack of game play depth in Sim-Golf.
Worse is still to come. From what I have seen about Civ4 (which, granted, is not a lot) it looks like he has not learned from his previous mistakes and is going the same route all over again.

Warren Spector has not made a game I liked since WingCommander II.

Yes it is fun to make fun of EA but it is also easy. Too easy. If the employees believe they are working in a sweat shop that is a matter for the unions to handle. Having no direction of where your project is heading is annoying but the price you pay for not paying your own bills (like those ex Westwood employees, whose company would have gone bankrupt had EA not bailed them out). He who pays decides. Sure you can say this kills creativity, but I doubt it. Once those ex-Westwood people launch their next game we will see if they where right in their accusations.
Monopolies are not good no, but EA does not have a monopoly, certainly not like Microsoft has. Not using Windows might be difficult for some but there is no difficulty in not being EA made games.
Ohh, and you don’t need to be an Angel in order to not be a monster.