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Continued from page 1.

Building Greatness
Another factor that plays into the game heavily is the ability to build wonders, finding relics and utilizing “great people”. For starters wonders are exactly what they sound like, wonders of the world. In the first part of the game the ancient era you can build the Great Pyramid that gives access to all forms of government, you can also make stunning wonders like the Great Wall, Stonehenge, and the Oracle of Delphi. Each wonder comes with a boost in a certain aspect of the game like giving an increase in a building in your city, improving city squares, or doubling production in a city. The downside to wonders is that they take a while to build starting a 100 turns then moving upwards to 800 with the Apollo Program and the Internet. Some of the other wonders from the other era’s are, Oxford University, Hollywood, Magna Carta, the World Bank and the Manhattan Project.

From Aristotle the Ark
Relics
and Great People act in the same way as wonders except you don’t build them they are found. Relics are a new addition to Revolution that gives the explorer in you and reward if you find them. These come in the form of the Ark of Covenant, a temple that grants a temple in each town, or an upgrade to a cathedral. Finding any of the six relics in a game really helps give a boost to your status in the game. The great people are divided into six types that provide a special feature when they make an appearance in your town. These great people pop up when you hit a certain amount of culture, steal them with a spy, discover an tech first, find the School of Confucius relic, earn economic milestones, or from conquest. The classes of great people come in the form of great artists, thinkers, builders, humanitarians, industrialists, explorer, leaders and scientists. What they can do is give a one time bonus that consumes the person like finish building a wonder, or you can have them hang around in your town providing a bonus to a certain aspect in the game like science or culture. For names be on the look out for some of greats like Aristotle, Henry Ford, Leonardo da Vinci, Marco Polo, Thomas Edison, Lao Tzu and more.

The Destroyer of Worlds
If you’re playing Revolution on the Xbox 360 a number of addictive achievements have been added extending the gameplay even more, sorry PS3 no Trophies at the time of this review. Some of these achievements can be easily snagged like beating the game as a certain civilization, each civ is added giving you 15 points each. Other achievements come in the form of winning certain victories at certain difficulty levels including the impossible deity difficulty level. You can also earn some cool named achievements like “The Root of All Evil” from making a city that pumps out 200 gold per tern, or “Destroyer of Worlds” for winning the game in each victory condition. Besides the deity level you can also strive for “That We May Live in Peace” which hands 25 points over if you can win the game by 1000 years on king difficulty level or higher. Civilization Revolution might be one of the most addictive games on the Xbox 360, and achievements just make the addiction that much sweeter.

Console Quickness
One area that has been drastically overhauled for the consoles is the games length. The normal game on the PC could last up to 20hrs or longer, but for the consoles Firaxis has managed to get it down to a few hours. I had a few games that lasted four hours, but normally I pop off a game in 2hrs. They way they do this is pushing the game along a little faster so you can complete a game in one sitting. Tech's develop faster and the victory endings can be achieved faster, if you worried about sitting around for hours you don’t have to fret with the console game. Personally, I like the games to be a little longer or at least the option to have a long or short game. Since you can save at any time (single player only) I really don’t see the problem with extending the games length a bit. Besides achievements, fast gameplay, online multiplayer, Revolution also includes scenarios that thrust you into the action under certain conditions. This keeps civ interesting if you want a little variety in your game, along with the ones provided, 2K is planning to release future scenarios for both the Xbox 360 and PS3 in the future.

Remember, its no Civ4
The bad part of civilization revolution is that it is a little faster, a little dumbed down compared to the PC version giving gamers less reason to think. Certain aspects have been simplified like roads being automatically built. In game titles have been simplified to only provide one aspect of the game at one time (food, production, science, gold). Other aspects that have been vanquished from Civ-Revolution is religion, along with the complexities of the Civ4 civic system. Other changes come in the form of fewer penalties during the game, weak diplomatic policies, no more pollution, corruption, starvation etc... Basically everything has been quickened and the more in depth features have been removed. If you want the normal in-depth micro management joy that you can find on the PC, you will be feeling a little short changed with the changes made in Revolution.

Lowdown
I could go on and one probably for pages talking about all the ins and outs of Civilization Revolution. Civilization for the consoles might be dumbed down, but compared to other console titles there is a lot to get into... Bottom line, if you enjoy strategy games then you can not miss out on Civilization Revolution. Civilization Revolution packs the strongest elements from the long run PC franchise while keeping the pace quick and graphics to a console friendly audience. Hardcore Civ fans might want to give Revolution a glance, but it will never replace your love for the PC version of this iconic strategy game. Sid Meier's Civilization Revolution is the most immersive strategy game on the consoles to-date that can offer up this much fun, offline or online and for multiple skill levels. Now back to my latest addiction... it’s time for one more round.

Gameplay: 9, Graphics:9, Sound:8, Innovation:9, Mojo:9 Final: 8.8 / 10


Reviewed by Downtown Jimmy | 07.31.08

+
  • Highly addictive gameplay
  • Multiplayer support for up to four players
  • Streamlined gameplay for quicker games
  • Console friendly interface and controls
  • High replay value with increasing difficulty
  • Future promise of new DLC
  • Lack of depth in comparison to the PC
  • Customization is limited
  • Can not save during multiplayer games
  • Lots of features from the PC not included
  • Voical overdubs could have been used instead of sim-babble

Sid Meier's
Civilization
Revolution

Publisher
2K Games

Developer
Firaxis Games

Genre
Strategy

US Release
July '08

ESRB
"E10+"

Platform
PS3, X360, N-DS

Features
1-4 Players
Multiplayer Vs
5.1 Surround
HDTV 1080p
D/L Content
Leaderboards




Links