AlexAeon

Civilization Revolution (PS3/360) Score: 4/5

Aaah yes, the Civilization series of games. The game that dared to be different and try a slightly less twitchtastic approach to gaming than most other games. The Civ games have always been different from even other popular franchises that were based on strategy, such as the Age of Empires games (which also rocked!) in that its always been turn based, and the focus has always been on more than just "build stuff to go and kill the other guys stuff", but I'll talk about that more later.

Civilization games have also been famed as a PC title, meaning they were always released for computers, and if a console got anything it was just some crappy, horribly done port that just went down as being a pain to play on whatever console it was on at the time.. Yeah Civilization for the SNES, I'm lookin at you!

So what happens when its announced there would be an entirely new, shiny Civilization game? The people rejoiced! Then they said it was for PS3 and 360 only, NO PC version... Well for hardcore PC gamers that dont touch consoles, they didnt exactly react well, but for everyone else we were just hoping it would be awesome. What did we get? Well after spending quite a few hours, days even beating the various difficulties, I've got to say JOB WELL DONE! And I'll break it down here.

Okay now let me break it down real quick for people that might not know or be into Civilization games in general. The basic concept is that you take on the role of the leader of a country that you choose from a fairly good selection, and then you start the game off in ancient times as nomads, then build cities, plan infrastructure, culture, research technologies, and basically raise your civilization all the way from the stone age up to modern times and beyond. All while playing the diplomacy game, or waging war on the other countries on the game board. All this is done in Turn Based Strategy format, that is you plan your moves then "end" your turn and it all plays out. Typically because of this format Civ games have never really been very "exciting" or action packed, the fun was basically in just playing dictator/president/monarch and watching your empire grow and prosper or conquer the globe.

Lets start with some generalities like how the new game translated to consoles. First off as a vet Civ player I noticed that the game is far more streamlined, which means that theres fewer things to research, fewer dealing with politics, societal issues etc and time advances quicker. What does this mean? It means that yes the game has less depth than the INCREDIBLY OVERCOMPLICATED mess that PC civ games have become which turns diehards of the series off, but I'll say I liked it, and heres why: An average game of Civ Revolution on harder difficulties now only takes about 3, maybe 4 hours max to play out whether you win or lose. Some people dont like the shortening but I'll be honest here, the WEEK-LONG play sessions I used to have on some of the PC civ games was just not cool... Sure it was totally in-depth and all, but I never finished more than maybe 1 game on the PC, then I just got bored after a day or so.

Second off theres the actual gameplay, well Civ Revolution is no action thriller, but its definately more interesting to watch units fight it out, and you'll be doing lots of fighting I'll tell you that. There are four ways to win the game, Domination, Economic, Scientific, Culture. So in theory you wouldnt have to fight at all to go with the less violent victories right? WRONG.

The AI in Civ Revolution, whether you think its a good thing or a bad thing I can say this.. It wants your ass DEAD. Every game you have four opponent civiliaztions, they each usually try for a different victory but no matter what they generally dont fight each other, they have a sort of hive-mind mentality where they just gang up on the player. So if you wanna win, you're going to have to build your armies and take at least one or two of them out before they get you. The AI in this game is aggressive and diplomacy is far simpler, its still an option to have peace but more often than not the AI wants your best tech, all your gold, or basically something that would cripple you to stop waging war on you.

What does the Alex think about this? Well it certainly takes the more subtle points of foreign relations out of the picture that the PC civ games had. At the same time the new AI is a challange, I actively have to not only defend but reach out and aggressively take their cities in order to just survive in what would be a 4 vs 1 slaughter-the-player game. So if you play more laid back, you'll probably find yourself hating the new AI, if you like some action and sweating a little as you try to survive and prosper then you'll love it.

Now another good point real quick to bring up is management... Theres almost none. You have to build buildings in your cities, build new cities, roads, all that but with a few button taps you can have your entire country up and running without worrying too much. Now you still have to custom move your workers around to get MAX efficiency but overall you'll find yourself having far more time to do other things than play manager. This is another one of those things where you either love/hate it, some people like the intricate tediousness of micro-managing a whole continent of cities... Other people prefer to just let it run and have time to do what they want to do.

Lastly I'll make a brief note on graphics, yeah I dont normally judge a game by its pretty pictures but I have to comment on this one. The game has a very stylish approach, the advisors and units and everything are pretty well detailed and shaded an all high def goodness. Though everything has a slightly cartoonish look to it, not overy exagerated by any means, but its definately got comical overtones.

Overall I think Civilization Revolution is an outstanding console exclusive release of the Civ franchise. I could nitpick, but who cant find something, so I'll just say my only solid complaints were a bit of graphic lag in later stages of a match when the whole map is covered in cities and units... Its a bit much for any console to take whether its a PS3 or 360 and you get some very minor freezing going on, but nothing that disrupts gameplay in the slightest, just an annoyance.

If you like city/empire builders and you like a more action oriented challanging experience then Civ Revolution is right up your shady gamers alley. If you fall into the more diehard empire builder sims that are based on micromanagement then you probably wont have too much fun wth this. So I'll say whether you like this game or not all depends on what type of gamer you are. Me, well.. I loved playing through all the difficulties and I still play it sometime too, its a well done game thats addictively fun if you get into it.