ace3502's Full Review: Civilization Revolution for Xbox 360
Sid Meier has come a long way over the years. I was first introduced to the Civilization series for my computer with Civilization II for Windows. The game completely sucked me in. I am a fool for strategy games like this and the variation of outcomes during the game keeps the replay value high.
Overview Civilization Revolution is a very intricate strategy game. Playing as one of numerous civilizations from around the world, your objective is to start from scratch and build an empire, eventually winning by becoming a world power. I am very much a perfectionist and this game feeds my desire to micromanage as you have the ability to adjust very intricate details about your cities and civilization. This intricate detail is what keeps me coming back to Civilization games. The ability to minutely adjust various facets of the game and see how it can change outcomes is an addictive process of elimination and strategy. As a leader you have to carefully guide your civilization through the trials and obstacles of this video world in order to win the game.
Gameplay - 9.5 / 10 You start out the game by picking a civilization. From the Americans and Greeks to the Aztec and Mongols, there are 16 different civilizations to choose from. Each one has their benefits and downfalls that will help you during the game. Some start out with more gold, or more resources or technologies than others and vice versa. There are four ways to win the game. Domination, economic, technology, and cultural victories. Domination is achieved by eliminating all other civilizations (you don't have to take over every city like you used to in the old games, simply taking over their capital city is considered a takeover). Economic victory is achieved by obtaining 20,000 gold and then building the World Bank, not exactly sure how this corresponds to a victory but I suppose money is power. A technology victory is achieved, much like the old Civilization II game for Windows, by researching all possible technologies until you get to space flight, and building then inhabiting a colony in outer space. Finally a cultural victory is achieved by building or obtaining 20 wonders of the world or "great persons" and then building the United Nations. Great persons are a new addition to the Civilization series. They are exactly as they sound, great persons throughout history. There are a total of 46 great persons which all fit into six different categories. The categories are Great Leader, Great Scientist, Great Artist/Thinker, Great Builder, Great Humanitarian, and Great Explorer/Industrialist. Some examples of the people from history they chose to represent these categories are Plato, Homer, J.S. Bach, Henry Ford, Vasco Da Gama, Tippu Sultan, Albert Schweitzer, Frederick Douglass, and Marie Curie. There are many more but I thought the game did a great job of incorporating many of the well known with some of the lesser known. The great part about this game is that aside from being entertainment, it is educational too. I would highly doubt a player will have heard or know who all 46 great persons are, so the game provides an encyclopedia which they call a "Civilopedia" to give you background and a small biography on each great person. In addition to that, the Civilopedia also has a wide array of information about all of the technologies you can research, talking about where each was first founded, by whom, and how it affected history. This aspect of the game is standard in Civilization games, and is a phenomenal tool, providing both entertainment and education.
After picking a civilization you begin the game on a world map (no resembelence to any real life maps) with a settler who builds your first city. There is no limit to the number of cities you can have and you can customize what is built within each city, with each different structure helping the city in different ways. For example, a library will increase science production while a marketplace increases gold production. You also choose a technology to research. The game has a built in glossary of technologies, what each one will bring you, and what technologies it will lead to by discovering it. This is an invaluable tool as the technologies you research will help shape how you play the game. For example, if you are focused on a domination victory, you will research primarily war based or military technologies to power up your armies. However, if you are trying to achieve a cultural victory, you would be focused more on technologies which increase the education / culture in your cities and provide more wonders of the world for you to build.
As the population in your city grows you are able to "harvest" squares around the city that have resources on them. Some have gold, others have cotton or dye, and still others produce food which help your cities population grow. All of these different resources affect your city's production and growth in various ways, so the location you choose to build your cities are very important. Every aspect of this is able to be customized. If you want the city to make more money you can take one of your people off of a food square and move them to a gold square to earn the city more cash. This is great in helping the user attain the different winning strategies the game has to offer.
Proceeding through the game you explore the map (which starts out completely obscured other than where you are and you have to explore around to uncover it) and encounter other civilizations. Sometimes it happens quickly, other times it takes a while to encounter another but you are always guaranteed to as the game pre-sets 4 other artificial intelligence (A.I.) civilizations to interact with you in each game. Much like real life, once you encounter each civilization you can use your diplomats to speak with them at any time. Depending on your strategy, you can offer them gifts to keep peace, you can offer to trade technologies (or sell / buy technologies from each other), or demand gifts or technologies to appease you so you don't attack the civilization. Now mind you, these civilizations can all do the same thing right back to you, and as a matter of fact they will (after offering peace and maintaining it for a bit) attack or threaten to attack you if you don't give them gold or technologies.
Although the game is not two player on a single console, there is multiplayer available on Xbox Live. As with almost any other game out there, be prepared if you are to venture into this because these players are very accomplished with the game. Gameplay does not change in multiplayer, only human players take turns instead of the computer.
There are two basic modes of play. The first is the standard playthrough which I described above, and the second is choosing a scenario. The scenario list is complied of different situations or predicaments that the player is dropped into the middle of, and have to find their own way out. It is essentially jumping into a game that has been established in some way. Some of these are quite long and tedious, others are fun and fast such as the Lightning Round Scenario which starts everyone out with all technologies discovered. The different scenarios foster different ways of winning, eliminating some, forcing you to take certain routes to win with others (i.e. the Lightning Round which eliminates a technology victory by starting everyone out with all technologies). These can be entertaining for the experienced player but I would definitely recommend standard game play for the beginner until they acclimate to the different approaches and strategies to the game.
Another excellent feature I want to mention is the great hall. After winning, you are able to view your great hall which carries all of the great people (and biographies), the civilizations you have already won with, and a view of miniature models of major wonders of the world that you have built. All the while giving information and background on any wonder or great person that you build. This educational aspect is rare to find in video games and I am pleased to find it in this one.
Graphics - 7.5 / 10 I did not set the bar very high for this category. Civilization games are packed with information and strategy, but there is minimal space for impressive graphics. With the exception of battle scenes, the same aerial shot of the map is pretty much what you encounter throughout gameplay. Now I have nothing against that because I love the gameplay, therefore the graphics were not very important to me. Although crisp and well detailed, the fluidity of the graphics did not impress me. They did not go above and beyond in trying to create realistic scenes, as the battles along with the animated diplomats and advisors, are all cartoon-like animated. Sound - 8.0 / 10 The soundtrack for the game was good, but lackluster. There is really not too much of a soundtrack to the game as most of the gameplay is done in silence. There are sound effects however, that occur during battles (along with short firey battle music playing), and when advisors and other world leaders speak with you. With these people there are no audible words exchanged. When the advisors or dignitaries speak it is simply gibberish. Achievements - 9 / 10 The game has 50 achievements for a total of 1000 gamer points, and none of them are online, all are within normal single player gameplay. There are certainly very easy ones and others that are considerably harder, but in my opinion there are none that are completely out of reach. Quite a few are very tedious however, as you have to win once with each of the 16 civilizations in order to get 16 of the achievements. Currently I have 49/50 of the achievements, and plan on making it a clean sweep. Definitely entertaining and a good challenge for those in search of gamer points such as myself.
Downsides As with any game there are always down sides. Once a player is accustomed to the game, they no longer need the tutorial advice from the advisors of what to build or do next. However, there is no way to turn them off. A growing nuisance the more you play. Furthermore, the other nations that interact with you, can be overbearing. The other nations always offer you peace when you first encounter them, but it never fails, each one will go to war with you, and then make threats to continue the war unless you give them technology, gold, or a great person. The computer will pester you rather relentlessly at some points to grant them demands in order to reaffirm peace between your civilizations. Also, every time they speak with you, their avatar has to appear on the screen and spout off gibberish, which also becomes quite annoying and slows down gameplay. This feature can not be turned off either.
As I had mentioned before, uncovering the map is one of the objectives you can choose to or not to do. There is no penalty for uncovering or not uncovering the map and it really only serves to let you know where the other civilizations are, which is not pertinent information. In uncovering the map however, I have notice that once you leave an area after uncovering it from the thick white fog that blankets it, a thin, hazy, somewhat transparent fog takes its place, basically nullifying your uncovering it in the first place. You can no longer see in detail what is going on under this thin fog and it can impede strategy since you are unable to determine if and when your opponent is moving their army anywhere in your direction.
Overall - 8.5 / 10 As with its predecessors, Civilization Revolution is an education packed strategy game for those who love to micromanage. It can become very addicting and it is versatile enough to keep the player coming back with all of its different modes of play, civilization choices, and methods for winning. I would definitely recommend this game for those who enjoy strategy games, or for someone who wants to give a gift that is both entertaining and educational.
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