Civa La Revolucione! Civilization Revolutions Review
Reviewed on 360, DS. Also on PS3 Developed by Firaxis. Published by 2k Games.
I’m not going to waste your time by talking about the history of the Civilization franchise or the in-depth workings of how turn based gaming works for everyone out there who thinks ‘strategy’ is deciding between the chain gun or the chain saw in Gears. Short version: Sid Meier’s Civilization is the biggest video game ever made. You start at the dawn of human civlization with a motley tribe and work your way up to the modern day, all the while trying to take over the world. It’s incredibly detailed and incredibly awesome.
It’s also slower than Keyser Soze taking a jog and more detailed than a relief map of Michael Jackson’s face.
So, we now have Civilization Revolution. The big difference, despite it being on consoles, is the speed. A regular game of Civilization IV (the latest iteration of the PC game) takes about 30 hours from start to finish and if you really want you could push it to at least 80. I haven’t played a game of Revolution that’s taken longer than 4 hours and believe me I was trying to stretch it out as long as possible because it’s BRILLIANT.
I love Civ. I mean, really, really dangerously bordering on looking at it through its bedroom window at night kind of love. When Revolution was first announced everyone thought it was going to just dumb the game down but it’s not like that at all – it’s the same game at heart but now built for speed. Think of it like the difference between reading the original text of Romeo and Juliet and watching the movie version. Purists can scoff at the movie all they want but it’s got Claire Danes in it so purists can go jump for all I care.
For example in Revolution you start with a heap of base technologies that in the PC game you had to spend your first half an hour researching. This means you can get to the interesting techs a lot quicker and start to build your empire your own way in the first few turns. Researching also takes less time and it’s a lot clearer what each thing you can research ‘does’.
Oh speaking of building things your own way another cool feature of Revolution is that there are now four clearly defined win conditions you can aim for on each difficulty setting. I prefer the Financial win condition since I’m not a warmonger and it’s great that the game gives you the scope for that – the PC game always felt too dead set on war breaking out for me.
This game was released on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and DS. The 360 and PS3 versions (as far as I can make out) are identical and amazingly the DS version is near as damnit identical to the console versions. This easily makes the DS game one of the best DS games ever made. There were a couple of UI problems I had with the DS game that made me make some ill informed decisions (you can’t tell how many units you have in a city easily unless you activate them and them refortify them, aaaagh) but overall this is the console game in its entirety. It even has the downloadable weekly challenge packs! An incredible achievement.
Ultimately Revolution and regular Civilization are different enough that die hard fans like me should really get both versions. X-Wing and Star Wars Arcade are vastly different games but if you’re a Star Wars fan you’d want both, right? Right. An easily awarded 3, regardless if you’re a fan of the franchise or not.
PS: GO TO HELL GANDHI STOP TRYING TO NUKE ME YOU SON OF A BITCH!!!
Controller1.com rating 3/3
