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Aug 20, 2008

Review: Civilization Revolution





Civilivation Revolution
2K Games, Firaxis Games
Available on Xbox 360 & Playstation 3

Given the list of the confirmed games I knew were coming out this season and lack of my favourite franchises on that list, I knew didn't have a lot of titles to get extremely excited over this year. This week’s review however, was one of those games I have been counted down the weeks and days to. Sid Meier's Civilization Revolution is a newly, re-imagined sequel to the popular Civilization franchise made specifically for the consoles. As a fan of this popular PC series, I couldn't wait to jump on the couch to finally play this long awaited title.

Simplified and streamlined to make the game easier to control for newcomers to the series, Civ Rev has trimmed away all the micro-managing of the previous games and focused more on basic victory goals, smaller maps, and easier to navigate menus. While this may be great system to use with console games or for new players, I actually found I missed having my cities starve from lack of food or being able to set my gem mines up. For those little details though, I guess I’ll just have to run back to my old PC version of Civilization every once in a while.

The victory system has been simplified into four main goals: world domination, scientific achievement, cultural achievement, and economic achievement. The single player game has you pick from one of 16 civilizations which you must lead to victory through one of those 4 goals. You can modify your single player experience through difficultly, scenarios, or the random game of the week option. These options can either increase or decrease the time needed to reach a specific goal victory.




The multiplayer, while a little slow between turns, work pretty good on Xbox Live and the PS3 Network. You have the choice of ranked or match making games with up to 3 other playrs. There are leader boards and the game supports voice and video chat, though I only suggest video chat with the people you trust. There are some scary people on Xbox Live at 3am in the morning who like to eat cheetos and play Civ Rev in the buff.

The graphics are a larger, glossier cartoon version of its predecessors. With smaller maps, the icons have been enlarged and animated for easier distinction from other units. Your advisors which pop up from time to time to help you through the game are cartoons which look a lot like some recent political figures. Oddly they also have adapted to the language of simlish or something similar if that statement going to get somebody sued. There is a bit of cool jungle beats throughout the game but not as much as previous versions. My favourite feature in my previous civ game was the groove music that played throughout the main game play and sadly none is featured here.

While I've been wasting away the hours glued to my TV screen with the new Civilization Revolution, I doubt it will be replacing any of the PC versions in their glorious reign any time soon. I like that I can sit and play this simplified version on my console, but I missed the micro-managing and I missed the groovy tunes during the game play. Fans of the series could either hate this game or love it to death. For myself, it really depends on how retro I feel that day and today I’m feeling like change it good, so buy it.

Rating 9 out of 10
Buy it!

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