Civilization Revolution

Posted June 8, 2012 by Speed - 0 comments

If we look at the history of the Civilization franchise we can’t deny the incredible path it walked upon. Sid Meier’ s: Civilization conquered many pc gamer’s heart and is known as one of the best turn-based games. After conquering the pc world it’s time to rush into the console world. Yes indeed, Sid Meier’ s: Civilization Revolution takes its first steps on console.

The way Firaxis transferred one of the most complicated, overcrowded with tables, comprehensive games as Civilization from pc to console can only be approached with so much praise. Firaxis mainly cut in the micro management of the game so that we can concentrate us on the global planning. The interface of Civilization Revolution has been devised wisely around the limited numbers of buttons of the controller. To preserve the speed and to limit the navigation throughout the map, the interface takes simple tasks such as switching between your units. The essence of Civilization is still the same: construct a civilization and dominate the world.

You start around 3500BC with a primitive civilization from the prehistoric age and you’ll finish eventually in the near, technological future. Between this time breach you choose how to reign over your nation. Before you make your trip through history you need to choose one of the sixteen memorable leaders. Chiefs such as Caesar, Cleopatra, Abraham Lincoln and Ghandi are only four of them. Each one has his/her advantages and disadvantages, one will be better in warfare while the other has a large cultural influence.

There are four ways to win a game. You can go for a dominant victory where you must conquer each capital of your enemies. Then you have the economic victory where you need to gather 20.000 gold and build a World Bank. In the third possibility you must try to build twenty world miracles and practice a large cultural influence on other civilizations. And last but not least is the race to space. You need to unlock all the scientific developments before you can construct a spacecraft and travel your way to Alpha Centauri. The different ways of victory lead to extremely thrilling endings. While you are gathering your last coins to reach your economic victory there is always a possibility that your enemy reaches another kind of victory before you do.

Unfortunately Civilization Revolution does not contain a campaign mode but only some scenarios. These are similar to the skirmish mode and do not offer any extras. A game of Civilization takes two to five hours of your time before there’s a winner. After a few games the offline part starts to get a bit boring and the craving to begin a real, online, fight is obvious. In spite of Civilization being a turn based game, it keeps the online experience in a good tempo. Do not forget that once you start playing an online game, you’ll be shackled for four hours in front of your TV.

Graphically the game looks considerable. The world is well colored, the animations are suitable and there is much eye for detail. Comparing other RTS games like Supreme Commander and Command & Conquer the game looks a bit gentle. Of course the emphasis of the game doesn’t not lie in the visuals. In spite of the simple graphics there were still some hitches during the fights between units when we played it.

There is absolutely no game that blows your perception of time away like Civilization does. The seduction of making a last move after playing an everlasting game session is so big that one last move often ends in the middle of the night. Before you know five hours have passed, your telephone rang a couple of times, you forgot lunch and dinner time and on top of that you need to get up within two hours to go to work. Civilization Revolution plays extremely well on the console. The one who still says that RTS games should be played with mouse and keyboard must try this game out!

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