Noooo! (though at this point it doesn't matter)

[A Black Falcon]

Yeah... its the hope that in the future that name could come back and be what it once was, really. I know that they've been going downhill since Sid left in '96 or '97 (when they merged with Spectrum Holobyte), but still... in those years they've released some pretty good games. Not as good as their older stuff... but they were there. What I think about this... its just like my feelings about Midway closing their arcade development wing. Were they great anymore? They were okay... not great. They'd been great a few years before, but had gone downhill fast as Midway got out of the arcade business... it wasn't because of that NBA game that I was sad about that. It was about the fact that Midway had closed the studio that was the direct decendent of the arcade division of the real Atari, so many years back... a studio with that history, gone forever... same as Microprose here. Its sad. :(

But yes, when Sid, Brian Reynolds, and Jeff Briggs all left some time after Civ 2, Microprose clearly had lost its greatest talents. And yes, Firaxis (Sid and Jeff Briggs, now, since Brian Reynolds left, started his own company, and made Rise of Nations) really is the successor to Microprose since the three went there... but its just not the same.

And Civilization II is still the best TBS ever.