Review: Civilization Revolution (Xbox 360)

I was turned on to Civilization series thanks to some friends at a LAN party that recommended it, and we made a night of it. Since then I have been an avid fan of the series, but knowing how much Civilization 4 could tax my computer, I was a little more than concerned when I heard that they were going to take another attempt at making the game on the consoles.

Story :

You select one of histories greatest leaders at the start of time, and as the leader of a fledgling nation, the success and survival of your nation all depends on your leadership and guidance. Are you up to the task, or will your fledgling country crumble under another leader’s iron fist, technology, cunning, or culture?


Graphics:

One of the first things you will notice is that this is all beautifully rendered in 3d and at least on the surface runs smoothly, but like its PC counterpart will start to get sluggish when a whole lot of units are on the screen at one moment. Despite this common error with the series as a whole, this is definitely a large step up for the series graphically, even if it is not going to be as beautiful as some of the other Strategy games on the Xbox 360


Music & Sound Effects:

Musically Civilization Revolution is not going to be winning any awards, but is engaging and enough to keep you going. I was rather disappointed to see that the music from some of the other games in the series did not make it over, and that also goes for the voice acting, now instead of talking in the native tongues of their native land, all of your advisers and rival leaders now speak Simish like the natives of the Sims games do, and while I really miss Leonard Nemoy’s Dulcet Tones when an technology is discovered like was present in Civilization 4, and at least one expansion I can live with out it here.


Control & Game Play:

This game is easy to pick up and play, I found my self diving right in and easily figuring things out with out much difficulty at all, selecting what to research, where to place your troops, and generally playing the game is very intuitive. As with most good games this is easy to pick up and play, but difficult to master. Some things are fixed like the deals and trading screen with your neighbors is now much easier to accomplish, as is visiting the tech tree, though changing countries policies is much more difficult now. A nice new touch is that you can now form armies, that increase troop strength and allow for new strategies to be employed, and takes the importance of stacking units and tosses it out the window a bit which is a good thing. One of the most important things that I think is included in this version is the fact that many units are a little more balanced, instead of the Pikeman actually having a good chance of taking out a Tank it is a lot more balanced, so while the Pikeman unit can take down a Tank, it is less likely, and is in fact far more rare than it used to be.


Design:

What I really love about this game is that you can win through various different means. Like if you want to be a true pacifist you can win by the United Nations electing you the winner, or by winning the space race to get to Alpha Centauri (a reference to another Sid Meier game), or economically, outpacing your foes financially. Or you can take the path of War conquer them all with excessive force and an iron fist. While this game may be easy to pick up and play, the game hardly suffers from lack of depth, more nations, and leaders with their own strategies and strengths you will often find that will lead you to victory. If there is a down side it is that this is a turn based strategy, fortunately the turns move very fast for a turn based strategy game, and that this version can be completed much quicker than its siblings on the PC, what used to take all night to complete one game. Though as a side note you should know that Xbox Live play is a lot of fun, but should only be tried once you beat the game on its highest setting

Civilization Revolution:

Pros:

Good graphics

Simplified but fun Game play

Great Multiplayer

Can be played in a few hours now



Cons:

Can experience some slow down

No Nemoy….. :(

More variety could have been nice in the Voice acting

This game is addictive fun, I feel that Civilization Revolution is a must own game, especially for the strategy fans out there. This game will easily fill the strategy game fix every gamer has been looking for, even for those jaded gamers that feel that the Strategy Genre is dead. be sure to check it out: Big Thumbs Up[url]