Until now, when long hours in a powerless gatehouse demanded more use of my DS. And what better way to lose a chunk of the day? Civ Rev on DS is everything I need it to be. At launch, reviews criticized it for shortening game length to a few hours, yet providing no save system, requiring a game to be finished in one sitting. The portable version doesn't have that problem, since thinking that someone will be playing their DS for five hours in a row every time they turn it on is outrageous. There's nothing lost in the transition from big to small screen, save for graphics quality, but that's to be expected.

The only issue I have with it is the difficulty associated with opening negotiations with opposing civilizations. There's no clear menu system, and the only way I ever found to start talks was to march your troops into an ally's territory, prompting a "What the shit are you doing?" message from your foreign adviser.

Smoothly transitioning, we could ask the same question of Mathieu Kassovitz, director of Babylon A.D. Here's a movie that has Vin Diesel looking like Pitch Black Vin Diesel. A mercenary who just wants some money and doesn't care how he gets it? That's the only role he should be playing these days. But something happened along the way. Maybe it was the director of Gothika being in charge, that's just a guess.

Plot twists contradicted things that happened earlier, or at least were questionably sincere, given some character's earlier motives. For instance, Vin Diesel's character hates having to deal with the girl he's in charge of smuggling, along with her adoptive mother. But about halfway through, after some "heartfelt" talks, he's laughing and drinking with them in the Arctic Circle. His entire dark, brooding mood is shattered, and their dislike of him is equally whisked away. Not to mention the scene at the end reminded me all too much of The Pacifier.

So usually when I am gone I am playing video games and I thought I would drop a little note about one I recently played. The game is called Civilization Revolution.

The single player was alright until you got tired of playing a cheating ai and had beat the game on every difficulty level, then it became extremely boring. Unfortunately is stayed that way,because a month later 2k had no fixed the multiplayer so you could find games and join them. This was the ps3 version that I played. Supposedly you could find game on the xbox 360 but it was hard to actually finish one.

So, for the 1st time in my entire life,I returned the game for a refund. If you don't mind mind numbing ai and no online play, go ahead and get it. I personally prefer a little fun in my games.

So now that i am between games is it possible the Smartaxe will be back? Maybe...stay tuned to find out!

Anyone who has played the various incranations of Civilization from Sid Meier know that phrase.  They've said more times than they care to admit to.  But such is the hallmark of a truly great game.  Many a player has turned that "just one more turn" phrase into several additional hours of game play, often at the epense of sleep/work/family/pets.  I know I did on several occasions.

As computer technology advanced, so did the games for them.  The first Civilization (CIV1), could fit on two 3.5" disks (I still have a copy somewhere), and provided numerous hours of entertainment, bordering on addiction.  CIV II was the next step forward, and came on a CD.  Game play was enhanced with new technologies, better graphics, more Wonders, and all that.  CIV III was less of a step forward.  Game mechanics were improved, as was the interface, but new content was light.  Then came CIV IV.  This is a great game, but may be a little too over the top in terms of eye candy graphics.  It plays well enough, but I would have rathered seen more depth and detail added to the gamemechanics and in game aspects (technologies, wonders, units, etc), rather than having snazzy 3-D graphics that I usually turn off anyway.

But as things progressed, culminating with CIV IV, so did the complexity of game play.  With each CIV incarnation, micromanagement increased, as more depth and details were added.  CIV III began to give players more aids in this (auto assignments and such for each city by an AI "governor"), but in order to truly get the most out of your nation, you had to micromanage each and every city.  This could get very unwieldy if you have a large nation.  This became a turn off for many casual gamers, and neophyte gamers.  It wass too much all at once.

Enter the consoles.  CIV was ported over to the PSOne several years back, and it was so-so.  It tried to be the PC version on a console, but didn't quite match up.  The controls were awful, and it was just too easy to skip over important things.  A good idea poorly executed.  Since then, true strategy games on consoles have been lacking.  And no, Command and Conquor is not a strategy game, it's a tactical game, as are all the C&C clones out there.  Deal with it.

As the PC gaming world is losing its dominance to consoles, it's only natural that Sid Meier and company (Firaxis), would make a console version of CIV.  But this time, rather than just porting over CIV IV (which I wouldn't have minded), they instead made a console specific version, Revolution.  This is designed with the intent of introducing casual gamers, and the nwe generation of gamers to the CIV franchise.

As I was searching about for a new game to play, having finished off Oblivion (finally), and worked my way through GHIII, and all but finished Residnet Evil: Umbrella Chronicles, I needed something new.  It came down to a choice between GH:Aerosmith, and Civilization Revolution.  Not being a fan of Joe Perry's solo stuff, I opted against GH:Aerosmith and instead went for CIV.  I'm happy with the choice.

First off, the game is not geared towards veteran CIV players.  It's for players new to the franchise, and those who find the PC version too complex.  This is quick and dirty CIV, streamlined for the console generation.  This is not to say veteran players won't get enjoyment or value out of this title, but they're not the target audience (they're all playing CIV IV already).  The manual is simplified, as it has to be put into the packaging for a console game, but what isn't in the manual itself (which is quite alot actually), is easilly found in the in game Civiliopedia, which is far more appealing than what I've previously seen.

Now to the game itself..

The game features many of the improvements and features of previous CIV games.  Great leaders, nation specific units, nation specific bonuses, etc are all here.  The interface is intuitive, and easy to navigate.  You shouldn't find yourself getting lost moving from unit to unit or screen to screen.  The game is visually nice, it's easy on the eyes, and is not distracting.  Sound is good, but not spectactular.  The lack of real voices for the advisors is a bit annoying.  You can play with the sound off and not miss it.

The game play is quick.  And I do mean quick.  You can play a complete game from begining to end, in about 2.5 hours.  This is a necessary design decision, as generally speaking console players don't always have the time to spend 12-18 hours playing a single game like this.  You can save games at any point, just as in the PC versions, but if you have the 3 hours or so to sit and play, it's generally not needed (except to recover form a hang/crash).

The game speed is facilitated by a severe streamlining of some in game aspects.  The tech tree is sigificantly reduced, as are the numer of Wonders, and the over all number of unit types.  All the usual suspects are present, along with some nation specific units, but the variety and dpeth found on the PC versions is not here.  The simplified tech tree allows for greater tech rushes, and the interconnectivity of techs is greatly reduced. 

The number of over all turns seems to be reduced as well.  I've had difficulties in reaching the techs to the Space victory on every level (through King so far), except on Chieftan (easiest).  Combine this with some AI cheats, and some Wonders (notably the Ancient ones), are worthless before you start, as it takes too many turns to build them, and by the time they're built, they're already obsolete. 

The game map, and number of Civ's is static.  Every game plays on the same size map, with the same number of Civs in play.  There is no ability to change these parameters as on the PC versions.  While this enhances the game play speed, it does tend to forcing players into certain specific game play styles, where conquest is the main option.

You can win the game in one of four ways: 1. Domination.  You take 4 of the 5 enemy capitals and you win; 1a. Domination.  You win by having the high score when the game ends; 2. economic.  If you hit 20000 gold in your treasury and build the Worl Bank Wonder, you win; 3. Cultural.  If you get 20 Great Leaders and Wonders, and build the UN Wonder, you win; 4. Space Race.  If you build the colony space ship, launch it, and it arrives safely, you win.  So far, I've managed to win every way except by space race.  Veteran CIV players will be pleased to note that the end game ranking screen is still here.  So far, by best was finishing ahead of Winston Churchill (and he may be the "top dog" on the console listing).

There are 16 different nations to play.  There's a good variety, from the traditional (France, Germany, America, England), to the more recent additions (Such as Saladin and the Arabs).  Each nation gets various specific bonuses for each era in game (ancient, mideval, industrial, modern), and some get special units (such as German Panzers, or English Longbowmen), or special abilities (Roman 1/2 price roads, Mongols get barbarians to join them), which helsp to keep game play fresh.

Some of the old CIV quirks are still present as well.  Old hands will laugh merrily at the times when a lone archer unit would take out an army of tanks.  It still happens.  AI cheats are still in play as well, as you will notice how a 1-2 city nation will just be able to tech rush everything, or pour out units like a waterfall.  And of course, the AI is seemingly completely uneffected by the fog of war.  But that's almost to be expected of a CIV title.

The static game map size is a major flaw in the game.  It just doesn't allow for enough variation to keep more experienced players enticed.  So far, in about 12 games, I've seen only about 4 different map configurations.  Non-national placements, such as of barbarian villages, firendly villages, and ancient artifacts, are all fairly static as well.  after a short while, you'll be able to guess where they are from your starting position.

I'm not sure that the tech times, and build times have been properly scaled to the faster game play.  It seems that early on, the truns take even longer chunks of years than in previous versions, which skews the game play towards the modern era.  This is espcially true of the Ancient Wonders, most of which become obsolete and useless before they can be built.  This was an issue in the PC versions as well, but it's glaring on the console version.

The game could have benefited from having a slightly epanded game play.  Adding in about 15 more turns would have been good, and a slightly expanded tech tree would not have been amiss.  More customization options for map size, and number of opposing nations is needed IMO, but is probably lost on most of the console gamers out there (no offense).

Overall though, this is an excellent game.  It has all the addicting aspects of its PC cousins, but plays much much faster.  I found myself playing 3-4 games in a row, depsite the flaws.  The core of what makes CIV a great game, a classic even, is here, and that's what matters.  If you're a veteran CIV player, and want a quick and dirty game, this is worth it.  If you're new to strategy gaming, this is an ideal title to get your feet wet with, or if you're just curious as to what all the fuss is about.

8.5/10

This week we should be seeing the (delayed) demos for 1942: Joint Strike and EA Sports' Tiger Woods 09; maybe some Civilization Revolution content as well. But the most exciting new content has to be from Capcom. Not only do we get the PS3/PSP version of the PSone classic Street Fighter Alpha, we also get the demo and full game of Bionic Commando: Rearmed. Oh and of course it wouldn't be a Thursday on the PSN without Rock Band DLC.  [Update: Looks like there may be a demo for NHL 2K9 as well.]

Other content may be on its way as well but we wanted to get the news to you first! Check out the full release list below adapted from my thread at the PlayStation.com forums:

• 
  • Official word in from EA that the demo is hitting this week!
• Source: GameTab :: EA Sports

Disclaimer: This post is based on thorough research and always links to other sources. However, these rumored new content posts are never the full release lists (including movie trailers, game videos, etc.) and are subject to change at any time.

Along with some new DLC today Civ Rev has also been patched. Now the patch is really just to have the game support the DLC but there have apparently also been a few changes to the game too. It has apparently fixed some issues players were having when trying to play online as well as fixed some minor gameplay tweaks to make it a little better. You can see the full breakdown below.

DLC Functionality
The game now recognizes downloaded DLC packs and provides instructions on how to access the new DLC content when the game begins.

Wonder and Artifact Pack Functionality
New Wonder and Artifact Packs appear in the single player game and have full Civilopedia entries accessible inside the game and on the main game menu when installed. These new Wonders and Artifacts do not appear in multiplayer games.

Scenario/Single Player Map Functionality
When a Single Player Map Pack or a Scenario Pack is downloaded, the new scenarios/maps appear under the "Play Scenario" option. Multiplayer map packs are also visible in the Single Player "Play Scenario" field.

Multiplayer Map Functionality
After the user has downloaded a Multiplayer Map Pack and the user creates a multiplayer game via Player Match or LAN Game, an additional Game Type is available - Scenario. This Game Type allow players to select from among any of the multiplayer maps they current have available to play their game on.

The multiplayer lobbies have also been updated to display what map a game is playing. If a player in the lobby does not have the map that is being played, they will not be able to join that game and an icon and message will appear that states they are unable to join the game.

Gamespy Version Increase
The Gamespy version key has been increased to 1.01 to prevent players without the patch from seeing players with the patch.

Joining Settlers to Cities
Previously, when players moved a settler unit into a city, they could had the option of that unit "Joining" the city, automatically giving it a full population point. Now, to prevent exploits, when players join a settler to a city, that city will only receive a set amount of food, meaning that in the later game, they will not provide a full population point to a city, only help it grow.

Instant Upgrades thanks to Retreating in MP Games
Previously, whenever a player retreated from combat, their opponent's unit automatically received an upgrade. To prevent exploits, this feature has been removed from multiplayer. Now when a player retreats from combat in a multiplayer game, it counts as a victory for the defender, but the defender will not automatically receive an upgrade just because their opponent has retreated. If the retreating unit, for example, is stronger than the defender, or the retreat is the defender's third victory, the defender can still receive an upgrade, but they do not always receive an automatic upgrade. Retreating still provides an automatic upgrade to the defending player in single player.

Disbanding Militia Units
Previously, whenever a player disbanded a militia unit, they received gold for them. To prevent exploits, disbanded militia units now provide zero gold. Now when a player retreats from combat in a multiplayer game, his opponent's unit receives nothing.

Montezuma Seam Fix
A misplaced seam down the middle of the Montezuma model has been corrected. This has been corrected.

Multiplayer Matching Fixes
The game was mistakenly searching for a scenario type when looking for multiplayer games previously. This has been corrected.

Scenario Screen Improvement
The Single Player "Play Scenario" screen now has the ability to display colored text.

[From PS3 Fanboy]

Sounds like this'll be a good thing for Civ Rev and it's players. This game's going quite cheap, if only it had trophies. Either way (mostly) free content is always a good thing. in my book.

Hey everybody, time for the weekly rumored new content post.  Last week, we did EXTREMELY well and were very close with our rumored content post, over a day before the official store post went live.  PixelJunk Eden made last week awesome just by itself, but this week we have a little more variety in the content.

This week we should be seeing a new episode of Qore (subscribers will get R2 beta invite).  We'll have at least one demo for 1942: Joint Strike and possibly another for EA Sports' Tiger Woods 09.  Speaking of EA, they may also be bringing you some NASCAR 09 DLC this week.  This should nicely compliment the new DLC for Battlefield: Bad Company (woo hoo Conquest mode!) along with the DLC for your favorite music games as both Rock Band and Guitar Hero III get some new content this week.  To top it all off, we are introduced to the Talkman Travel interactive travel guide for PSP.

Other content may be on it's way as well but we wanted to get the news to you first!  Check out the full release list below adapted from my thread at the PlayStation.com forums:

Talkman Travel  | Confirmed

• 
  • Talkman Travel is an interactive pocket tour guide
  • Available cities: Paris, Rome, and Tokyo
  • Price: $5.99 USD per city (3 cities in total)
• Source: PlayStation.Blog
    

• Game Video - Making of Bionic Commando: Rearmed (Part 2) | Rumor
• UPDATE: PS3 Theme - Home Theme + Home Beta Lottery! | Confirmed

Disclaimer: This post is based on thorough research and always links to other sources.  However, these rumored new content posts are never the full release lists (including movie trailers, game videos, etc.) and are subject to change at any time.

Your dictator's response upon meeting barbarian chieftain Norte Chico in Civilization Revolution

Yeah, I know the gaming site is coming, that's why this isn't entirely a post about gaming. Well, it is kind of about gaming, but not in total. It's more about my wife than anything else. See, we bought Civilization Revolution - Firaxis' attempt to make the Civ series, long a PC strategy gaming staple, appeal to the console market - because I played it and it looked cool to me. Plus, all of my other PS3 friends have it, so it'll give me something to play online with them.

Well, here's the thing. Holli loves it. She started off just watching me, then she had me teach her how to play. Now she's moved beyond that, playing on her own and eschewing any guidance I might try to give her. She's not had this much fun as a player of a video game, well, ever. For me, as her gamer dork husband, that's pretty cool.

She's gotten quite good at it, too. I think I could beat her, which I can safely say because we don't have two copies of the game to put the theory to the test, but it'd be close. She's got a few more nuances to pick up, but she's getting there.

See? Like that. She's sent her caravan off to go to Paris instead of using it to map out the world. It's the little things. Man, I hope she doesn't read this.

Name: Civilization Revolution

Platform: Xbox 360

Alright people this is the first review of a game and its a good one...the game that is. Alright well first thing is first the single player campaign is nothing more then a string of skirmishes, its cool yeah but its nothing special. The multiplayer is awesome to the extent that you can wage war on your buddies and stab people in the back, and that is what multiplayer is all about right, befriending people then screwing them over. In any case its fun shit, the difficulty ramps up nicely and starting at chieftain and working your way up to Deity is a fiet amongst itself so those of you who can do it with out cheating are stellar.

I've played a handful matches so far and every game is different. Its fun and definitely a time sink. My experience with the Civilization series is the the opensource version you can find for any Linux distro and the newest Civ Warlords. They are all fun but Revolution is definitely different. Its worth checking out. I dont know how long it will it will be worthwhile but it is still cool shit.

Alright now I didnt need to play this game drunk in order to enjoy it but the first night I did play it I was pretty fucking hammered, so I give it 2 beers.

The concept of the game is good, you choose your civilization (i chose the Aztecs) and you build your empire. At the same time there are other civilizations developing as well. You go to war, you develop great cities, you build armies, explore the world and all the things that you'd expect. So far sounds great, right?

Well the problem downfall that i see with this game is that its too short. You complete that game in 2-3 hrs max! The maps are small, and you can only encounter 5 civilizations at once. the time lapse is too short as well. For example if you haven't discovered the alphabet, you can go into the modern era without it. 

Its an entertaining game for the 2-3 hrs that you play it, but I just don't think it lets you develop everything as much as you'd like to. 

I've been playing Civilization Revolution a lot lately and I figured since this game never ends I should review it. As some readers know I was very addicted to the demo and that was a big reason as to why I bought the game. Let me first start off the review by saying I'm a huge FPS/Sports fan and I've never played a RTS until now. RTS has always been computer-only as they don't translate well to console. That is until now.

Gameplay: The first and most impost thing is control. The makers of this game did a excellent thing in making this game simple and easy to use. At first you see it is easy to use and things are easy to manage and then you get into the meat and potatos of the game and how does the game handle? Well it handles just like it did when you started, very easy and managable. You can have 27 cities with 94 armies and it's still easy to manage. It's brilliant, I believe a caveman can play this game. But you know what it is simple to play and very in-depth as to what you can do.

Presentation: One thing I enjoy is the advisors. You get a military, building/research, and diplomact advisior that will give you insight onto other Civilizations. And it's funny to listen to these guys talk to you as they speak some weird "Sims" language. It's quite hillarious to hear what they say sometimes. And as you can see the graphics are cartoonish but it's fun to see it. For everything that can be on the screen at once, the game handles it very well and everything just looks fun and fun to play.

Multiplayer: There is also the addition of multiplayer. Where you can play one on one, two on two, and a four way multiplayer. All of this online. Not only that, you can private chat player from the MP menu and make secret alliances. You can have private match, public matches, and of course ranked matches. And from my experience it handles everything just fine.

Overall: The biggest thing about the game is it is addictive and appeals to everyone. You just can't stop playing the game. It has so much to do and so easy to play, anyone can play it and enjoy. Yet there is stuff for the experts to enjoy as well. My biggest gripe is you need a tutorial for beginners, the current system isn't that good.

+ Addictive, addictive, addictive

+ Easy to play

- Takes a little while to learn

+ Depth, variety, depth

+ Addictive, addictive, addictive (yes I said it six times)

Score: 99 (9.9 or A) Go buy it now or at least download the demo, trust me

This brings me to talking about the latest Civilization game.  I first heard about it a year ago when I was looking at all the new game announcements during last year's E3.  I was initially excited only to find out that it was scheduled for release in the spring 2008.  Well spring came and went and the game finally came out about two weeks ago.  

From everything that I have read this version of Civilization is the one that Sid Meier's had always wanted to create.  When I heard this and also that it was being designed specifically for consoles I was even more excited.  I was looking forward to playing Civ 4 on my XBox since I had switched to Mac but unfortunately this was not what happened.  It seems that "designed for consoles" has come to mean a dumbed down version.  They have done an excellent job designing a user interface that works well with consoles and the controller but they have also taken out just about everything that made Civ 4 challenging.

In Civ 4 you had to balance almost everything.  You couldn't let your cities grow too fast or you would be hit by a penalty, your population would outstrip your food supply and your cities would start to shrink until the food supply would equal your population.  You also would be able to choose different economic systems, labor systems, and religious systems to customize your civilization.  The technology tree was also far more complicated.  All of this has been either axed or greatly simplified for the "console audience".  

For some reason this just seems to grate on my pride.  When I hear that this game was designed for the console audience and then I play the game I get the feeling that they think I'm stupid.  This leads me to state one of my fundamental beliefs, if you treat someone as if they are stupid and never try to elevate their view of things then you are doing them a disservice.  To write off the "console audience" as being too simple minded to grasp the complexities of the Civilization 4 is to keep the "console audience" stupid.  While you can always overshoot your audience, in a game of this nature a simple tutorial would always help to bring people up to speed enough to grasp the basics.  Then just playing regular games would help people to understand the finer points.  

Oh well, I can write a lot more about this but I will limit myself.  Civilization: Revolution is still a good game.  Just last night I fell into that "one more turn" syndrome and found myself hours later realizing that I had to get to bed for work the next morning.  I just wish they would not have assumed so much and simplified the game as much as they did.

First off let me say that I have never really been a huge fan of the RPG genre, they just didn't really do it for me. But when I heard that Civilization was coming to the PS3 and it wasn't just a port over but rather a full from the ground redesign I said its worth a try and man am I happy I did.

In CR there are several different play modes, you can do a single player in which you choose from one of 16 civlizations, each with its own special perks, and you embark on your journey to crush all that stand in your way or not. I say this because their are four different ways to win. A victory can be achieved in four ways. Domination (capture all other civilizations' capital cities), Culture (create a total of 20 great persons, wonders, and converted cities in any combination, and build the UN), Economic (create the World Bank), and Technological (be the first to reach Alpha Centauri). So as you can see you can take on a lot of different play styles in order to win but for some reason I can't seem to achieve anything but Domination victories, umm I wonder why lol. Well hey I never really liked playing defense anyway.

Choose a leader and fulfill your destiny

The game starts you off with one tiny village and you go from there. You start to generate basic infantry units and at first it takes three turns to generate one unit but as the game progresses that time will get shorter and the types of units you can create and the strength of those units will steadily increase. The basic way it works is that every unit has a certain number of moves per turn and you just start to move out across the map which is covered by clouds until you reach that area. More than likely you will either encounter friendly villages that will give you gold, knowledge, or units and become part of your civilzation or barbarians. Barbarians are not a civilization per say but rather just an additional obstacle. If you move out across the map quickly, you should be able to take them out easily.

 When you want to attack a unit, your unit has to be within their allocated number of spaces to attack, if so when you put your cursor over that unit you will see the matchup, your attack vs their defense. If your attack is higher then most times its a good idea to attack, most times as depending on what kind of upgrade the units have they may be able to over take you if you are closely matched. Any time your unit is seven times more powerful than the other unit you automatically overrun them and win the battle. Another cool thing about any of your units is that if you combine three of any unit (warriors, tanks, catapults) on the same space then they can form an army which is even more powerful. As your units battle they will gain experience and thus if a unit that has upgrades which you can earn through battle combines into an army with two units that don't have any upgrades, then the army automatically takes on the highest level out of the units, cool huh?

What wonders will you build?

The game has a game of the week in which everyone is given the same scenario and the person who wins the fastest sits atop the leaderboard. The scenario of course changes every week. The multiplayer is also awesome. Civilization Revolution features some robust multiplayer options, including match making and ranked games for up to four players (in a free for all, 1 on 1, and 2 on 2 team battle modes), as well as leaderboards and support for voice and video chat. All I am going to say is that these battles can get really intense, I mean do you launch your nuke or don't you?

This game has far to many nuances and little complexities for me to get into them all but just know that if I am not yet fully converted when it comes to RPG's as a whole, I am when it comes to the Civ Rev series. Depending on how you battle, the games can be relatively short or really long but you will be so encompassed in the strategy of it all you won't notice. Thus the replayability is extremely high and just be careful I lost an entire weekend on this thing and barely noticed. And I wonder why I am so tired? Anyway, for fans of the PC series you may be a little sad to see that CR is not as granular as its PC counterparts, it has been simplified to make it more conducive to consoles. That does not however mean that you won't love this game because you will. For folks on the egde or that never really played an RPG if you are going to buy one buy this one, and you won't be disappointed trust me. When Sid Meier says "This is the game I have always wanted to make" you know it has to be good. I give Sid Meier's Civlization Revolution 5 out 5 stars.

Note: This review is for the XB360 version of Civilization Revolution.

The PC/Console gap is a tough one to bridge, and has given quite a few crossovers

the kiss of death.  The only options for making the switch are to either stuff everything into a limited interface and cross fingers, or to completely revamp the game and risk losing people in the trade-offs.  Civilization Revolution ( 2008 ) went

for the latter and made risky changes to the beloved PC franchise.

You can begin as any one of 16 civilizations (two less than the last PC installment), each of which has one leader (ten less than the last PC installment).  Each of these civilizations has different traits which are engaged with the passing of four eras - Ancient, Medieval, Industrial, and Modern.  Many of the civilizations have special units (like the Sherman tank for the Americans), though some do not (i.e. the Chinese).  Perhaps it is meant as more of a challenge when playing these seemingly undeveloped countries, but it feels like unbalanced gameplay and only makes certain nationalities undesirable.

Taking account for all the missing features , one has to wonder if the designers felt as bummed as the player.  Gone are the map choices (the closest thing to this is the "scenario" choice, which gives the same map every time).  Gone is the ability to directly choose where the workers go for production.  No longer can you develop queues for city production, or even name your first settled city.  Yet as integral as many of these things sound to the veteran Civilization player, the game benefits from their absence.

Considering the headache this game would be with a full set of PC features, the simplicity is more of a blessing than a curse.  The matches are generally short, with only four nations and small maps, and the quick hit-and-run games make CivRev addictive.  Proximity between nations and no options for open border treaties becomes an obstacle early on because of the small maps.  Without the option for larger, more open maps, altercations with neighbors happen early on, tipping the scales in favor of a Domination (capturing all enemy capitols) rather than Cultural, Technological, or Economic victory.  Even so, my own experience found the latter three the easiest to attain with the least conscious effort.  The gameplay doesn't demand much in the way of the managerial role of the player, allowing him to focus on building, fighting, researching, and maintaining cities to work towards victory.

The designers did try to make up for what is lacking, though in aesthetic trappings, not functional

mechanics.  For instance, every match, your capitol gets a "trophy room."  During the game, leaders from non-playable nations (like the Phoenicians) will send presents, like cotortionists and magicians.  You can view the trophy room and watch your gifts perform.  My first gifts were five jugglers and four dancing bears.  While entertaining, it's little more than repetitive motions and changing camera angles.  By the third time I received a gift, I decided to stop going to the trophy room until after I was done with the game.

Another new feature is the right to name what you discover.  Traveling across a river will trigger a pop-up menu with suggested names that are associated with your nation (i.e. the Thames for the English).  This can happen with deserts, oceans, rivers, and plains, and gives a fresh, if not disappointingly small, role in discovering the world.  Another is that, at the end of a match, you can view the statues of rulers that you've played against thus far, as well as the wonders of the different ages and the Great Persons (scientists, philosophers, merchants, etc) that you have acquired so far.  Each item is linked to the Civiliopedia, which holds a wealth of information about everything in the game.

There are a few random picky things that should be mentioned as well. CivRev is disappointingly easy on the lower two difficulties for the random matches, but can be startlingly brutal in the scenarios.  There's no way to preview the defense bonus for a tile except to go into the Civilopedia.  The lack of a queue system means that each turn something is completed, another assignment has to be given - which becomes a huge hassle in 10-15 city civilizations.  The advisors, while they do give advice instead of showing charts like the PC version, all speak some strange Meierian version of Simlish.  In an irritating turn from an attempt at some sort of authenticity, each ruler speaks in an accented form of Simlish (i.e. Russian accented Simlish, or German accented Simlish) instead of their actual language.  I'm not sure why that choice was made in the production of the game, but it seems childish and even lazy. Diplomatic options are extremely sparse, making war constant and trade deals nonexistent.  With no option for "open borders" and small maps, making and maintaining massive armies is mandatory.

To be more positive, there are some great things in the game.  Troop management is easy, and it only takes one button to make an army or go defensive.  It's easy and simple to build roads between cities (though you can't build them to the middle of no where).  Spending gold to complete production can give immediate results, meaning that improvements or troops needed for defense of a city or reinforcements for traveling armies can be made immediately.  The battle system is lots of fun, with closeups of the action and the sounds of motions of battle.  You truly feel like a general sitting on top of the world.  The decision to keep  troop management costs, city happiness, and city health allows for the player to truly focus on playing the game and keep away from the details that would bog down the game into a unnavigable mess.

Sid Meier's Civilization Revolution is more than a facelift.  In many ways, it's unrecognizeable.  Really and truly, Civilization Revolution should be seen as just that -a revolution from the old ways of playing.  Trading the complicated interface and endless opportunities for micromanagement, CivRev simplifies gameplay and successfully creates an entirely new and addictive experience.  Fans of the series will feel the pains of the slimming effect of the console and will miss the setup of the old games, but even they will be able to find enjoyment in this newest installment.  Once they are able to move past what's missing, they will be able to accept the game as having its own identity.

Well, the Omegathon calls went out Wednesday evening, so the lucky twenty have been chosen.  Among them is last year's runner up Ben, or MNCDover.  I'll be rooting him on this year at PAX.

I picked up Civilization Revolution yesterday for the Xbox 360, because even though I'm on vacation, my cousin has her 360 here with her.  The only problem is she sleeps till one, we're at the beach or pool all day, go out to dinner, and then shop or hang out with the fam afterwards, leaving very little acceptable time for me to sneak away and get a game in.

I did however pop the disc in the tray last night late on, and managed to finish a game completely.  At the lowest difficulty the game is incredibly easy...but I just wanted to see how the game's tip engine would work in the later stages of the game, since we only got 80 rounds in the demo.  It didn't tell me much that I didn't already know.

I tried to go for a technology victory, but then the Japanese declared war on me (the Greeks), and at the same time, I found a secret wonder (the Knights Templar) that gave me a tank about two ages earlier than I could have built one normally.  I was merciless.  From there it was simple work to do away with the rest of the capitals.

Hopefully I'll get a chance to play another game before we leave on Saturday, and ratchet up the difficulty.

--WG

Komplexe und rundenbasierte Strategiespiele a la Civilization sind
normalerweise eher auf dem heimischen PC zu finden. Begründen kann man dies vor allem dadurch, dass sich Strategiespiele besser mit einer Maus und Tastatur spielen lassen. Die Entwicklerlegende Sid Meier wollte aber endlich mal das Gegenteil beweisen und bringt nun Civilization Revolution, einen konsolenexklusvien Strategiekracher, auf den Markt. Laut eigener Aussage handelt es sich bei diesem Titel sogar um den besten Civilization Teil den er je gemacht hat. Ob man seiner Aussage allerdings glauben schenken darf, zeigt die folgende Review.

Das Spielprinzip von Civilization Revolution ist zwar simple, aber dafür extrem suchtgefährdend. Ziel ist es das eigene Volk zur mächtigsten Weltmacht zu machen. Hierbei stehen dem Spieler 16 verschiedene Völker zur Auswahl. Unter anderem stehen die Germanen, die Ägypter, die Chinese und sogar die Japaner zur Verfügung. Natürlich braucht das Volk aber auch einen passenden Führer und so wird jedes Land von einer historischen Person zum Sieg geführt. Alexander der Große leitet zum Beispiel die Griechen, während die Inder von Gandhi angeführt werden. Insgesamt werden vier verschiedene Zeitepochen gespielt. Die Antike, das Mittelalter, das Industriezeitalter und zum Schluss die Moderne. Das Gameplay erinnert an Brettspiele wie zum Beispiel Risiko. Rundenbasiert müssen Einheiten bewegt, Gebäude erbaut und Technologien erforscht werden. Es gibt vier Wege den Sieg zu erlangen, nämlich den Herrschaftssieg (sämtliche gegnerischen Völker besiegen), den Kultursieg (z.B. 20 Weltwunder erbauen), den Wirtschaftssieg (20.000 Gold erwirtschaften) und zu guter letzt den Technologiesieg (als erstes Volk ein Raumschiff bauen). Vor allem bei dem Technologiesieg fällt einem recht schnell auf, dass hier im Vergleich zu den PC-Teilen deutlich Abstriche gemacht worden sind. Die Spielwelten sind kleiner, es stehen weniger Gebäude und Einheiten zur Auswahl und überhaupt wurde vieles vereinfacht. Sid Meier wollte das Spiel für Konsolenbesitzer zugänglicher und einsteigerfreundlicher machen. Dies ist ihm zwar voll und ganz gelungen, aber gerade Civilization Veteranen dürften dadurch etwas unterfordert sein. Trotz allem spielt und steuert sich das Spiel nahezu perfekt mit dem Controller. Maus und Tastatur geraten schon nach kurzer Zeit in Vergessenheit. Eine Partie dauert aufgrund des etwas schnelleren Spielverlaufs maximal drei Stunden, dies schwangt aber je nachdem welcher Schwierigkeitsgrad gewählt wurde. Bei Einstiegern ist zudem eine Eingewöhnungszeit von ca. einer Stunde zu empfehlen. Danach dürfte es aber keine Probleme mehr geben. Sollten die normalen Partien zu langweilig werden, hat der Spieler außerdem die Möglichkeit zehn verschiedene Szenarien aus der Geschichte nachzuspielen. Des weiteren besitzt Civilization Revolution einen hervorragenden Onlinemodus mit bis zu vier Spielern. Mit Ausnahme von leichten Lags läuft das Spiel absolut flüssig im Internet und vielleicht darf man sogar mit neuen, herunterladbaren Szenarien oder anderen Spielinhalten rechnen.

Grafisch wurde Civilization Revolution sehr sauber umgesetzt, setzt aber keine neuen Maßstäbe. Die ganze Spielewelt ist liebevoll und farbenfroh erstellt worden und die Übersicht geht auch niemals verloren. Besonders hervorzuheben sind allerdings das comicartige Charakterdesign (welches allerdings nicht jeden ansprechen dürfte) und die großartigen Animationen. Aber auch die Licht- und Wassereffekte können sich wahrlich sehen lassen. Trotz allem gibt es aber auch Schattenseiten zu sehen. So kommt es manchmal zu leichten Ruckeleinlagen und Grafikfehlern und insgesamt hätte Civilization Revolution auch etwas mehr Details verdient gehabt. Aber gerade im Vergleich zu anderen Strategietiteln geht die grafische Umsetzung vollkommen in Ordnung. Akkustisch erfüllt das Spiel leider nur seinen Zweck. Die musikalische Untermalung ist schön stimmig, wiederholt sich aber leider ständig und auf eine Sprachausgabe wurde komplett verzichtet. Stattdessen verwenden alle Charaktere ein Sims-ähnliches Geblubber welches auf Dauer leider doch etwas nervtötend ist.

Fazit:
Civilization Revolution ist ein sehr gelungenes Strategiespiel geworden, welches sich vom Großteil der PC-Konkurrenz nicht fürchten muss. Dennoch zieht es gerade im Vergleich zu den PC-Teilen der Civilization Reihe etwas den kürzeren. Zumindest wenn man ein erfahrener Spieler der Reihe ist. Denn um den Titel auf der Konsole zugänglicher zu machen wurde er vereinfacht und in Punkto Komplexität etwas heruntergeschraubt. Was aber auch einige Vorteile mit sich bringt. Dadurch ist Civilization Revolution nämlich gerade für Genreneulinge so zugänglich wie kein anderes Strategiespiel. Man kann Sid Meier nicht oft genug loben, denn Civilization Revolution wurde nahezu perfekt auf die Konsole umgesetzt und bringt gerade in Bezug auf die Steuerung keinerlei Nachteile mit sich. Technisch wurde das Spiel sehr sauber, wenn auch alles andere als weltbewegend umgesetzt und am nötigen Umfang mangelt es natürlich auch nicht. Sollte man das Spiel bereits mit allen Völkern absolviert haben, bleibt einem ja noch ein hervorragender Multiplayermodus sowie spannende Szenarien. Abschließend kann man Civilization Revolution wirklich jedem empfehlen, der sich auch nur im geringsten für rundenbasierte Strategiespiele interessiert. Mit Sicherheit das bislang beste Strategiespiel, das für Konsolen erhältlich ist!

8,5/10

What's with all the boobage? Look at Cleopatra in that picture. All of the female characters have round breasts bursting from their blouses--or underwear in Cleopatra's case. Game developers really need to start looking at how they portray women in games.

What's with all the fascists? You get to chose a civilization to represent from the start of the game, and your choices are a tresure trove of dictators and despots. It'd be cool to play as Nepoleon--but only if my people send me to the guillotine at the start of the game.

Why can't stopping the World Bank from being built be a victory condition? Building an equitably society would be more fun than colonizing the earth.

Strategy games have always found it tough to break into the console market. Since the early 90's, both turn-based and real-time strategy games have been at home with the keyboard and mouse of a PC. So, trying to transfer the strategy game to a console makes for a tough assignment. Possibly, due to the lack of buttons on a controller, or even that fine touch that only a mouse can provide but it hasn't stopped a multitude of games being brought out on consoles over the years, only to be classed mediocre. But Sid Meier, the god of strategy games and the father of the hugely popular Civilization series has set his sights on breaking the console market wide open with Civilization Revolution (here by referred to as Civ Rev).

A background on Civilization may be beneficial. Civilization is a turn-based strategy series that is massively popular and highly regarded in many gaming circles. It's premise revolves around the player taking a civilization from the stone age to the space age, fighting other civilization along the way. The games have become astoundingly deep and challenging as more incarnations have appeared which has lead to a large fan base across the globe, to which I am a part of. So when I heard the that a console installment was being planned, I was quite giddy. When Civ Rev was announced, many PC fans named it Civ Lite, due to it's streamlined playing style and apparent lack of depth compared to the PC versions, and while these points are true, it doesn't mean that this game is lacking, actually far from it.

The basic premise is the standard for a Civilization game, start a civilization from scratch and build it up until it dominates the world via military, cultural, technological or economic force. The main drawing feature of Civ Rev is the ability of a game to be completed in under 2 hours, something unlikely in the PC versions. This means you can play a game in one sitting, instead of taking 3-4 sittings, which could become quite tedious for an inexperienced gamer. To start a game, you pick one of the 16 civilizations which all have certain unique features and units which may or may not help you on your way. Once you have made the difficult choice, a random map is generated so that the game is completely fair to each player, unlike the PC version which allowed for choices of size and the like. Once the game has loaded, you're given a settler unit, who can build your city. Pick a nice spot which provides good trade, food, production and so forth and your off.

From there, it's up to you and your playing style. If your an aggressive type, domination victory might be the way to go, building armies and steamrolling all the opponents capitol cities. If you prefer to build your civilization without much violence you can go with one of the three other types of victory. Cultural victory, which requires 20 great people to settle in your cities before building the United Nations, Economic victory requires 20,000 gold in your treasury before building the World Bank and lastly Technological victory which requires you to build a space station to colonise Alpha Centauri. But before all that can happen you gotta build your civilization don't ya.

The controls aren't particularly tough to handle, just basic menu navigation stuff but it works well enough so that you never have to look at the manual to figure out the buttons. Once you build your first city you can train units such as settlers to make new cities, and military types for fighting and defending; build buildings within your city to make it stronger and provide upgrades; and build wonders which provide larger upgrades to your civ and only your civ. As your civ develops you'll encounter others civ's in your world to which you can be nice to as they threaten you with destruction or you can skip the small talk and get to your own destroying. Battles will eventually take place between units and armies (three units put together) which will lead to war meaning cities being taken over and territory lost. Things will go on this way until victory is achieved or time reaches 2100AD when points will determine a winner.

This fast-paced action works pretty well for the most part. It's good to know that you will finish a game in one sitting but being a civ fan I can't help but feel like it's a skeleton of fantastic game, it's just missing some stuff which would fill out the the body. All the basics are there and it all works out to make it a fun game, but it leaves you feeling as if you were just getting started. I mean you build your city, destroy a civ or two then bam!, it's the future already. Often it is hard to reach the victory conditions within the turn limit, especially on the harder difficulties were the opponents are incredibly aggressive and virtually make it impossible to keep the peace.

And because of the lack of peace, there is much fighting. Each unit has offensive and defensive points and these are matched up together in battle, although it doesn't mean that the stronger unit will always win, it just gives them the advantage. The unit's points can be augmented by difficulty level, their position in the world (eg. on a hill or in a city) and by upgrades. These upgrades are obtained by defeated other units, certain upgrades provide certain things (eg..allow better city attack or an extra move after an successful attack). Also, an army triples your unit's score, making armies vitally important to world conquest. While all the these things work well and is the traditional civ-combat system, but once you know what unit's are the powerful ones, the others become somewhat useless. It is possible to dominate the world with one or two tank armies. The actual combat taking place is much better than I expected, with real fighting between the units which become quite epic when an army comes up against another, with as many as 20 units fighting it out. It's much more fun than one character model dealing out the same dull animation as in previous games.

The game has a very cartoony look to it, with suitable graphics, nothing spectacular but it's in the detail where the game shines. Each unit and worker and building is tailored to each civilization, so that means the Roman character models aren't the same as the Arabian ones, which is a big plus for me. The cities are nice looking, with every building and wonder recogniseable within it's boundaries, and it's quite a feeling to see 6 large cities dominating your map. Unfortunately, the maps are quite small and feel unimportant, you don't ever try to consolidate land within the priority resources as you would do in previous civ games. Also, exploration is moot because the map is quite small and there is little territory that is untouched by the time you could afford exploration anyway.

After a game you can look at your rank compared to the legendary leaders of history and check out some stats (which are really the credits with a few stats in between), then you are taken to a palace where you can look at all the great people and wonders you have achieved during the game. Also, you can check out the new and improved civilopeadia where you can look at all the game concepts, units, buildings and people as well as there history. While all this seems good, once again it feels as if it could have all been done better with just a bit more detail.

The sounds are okay for the most part, the sound effects are in the right spots and it gives the combat atmosphere but the advisers which help you along in the game dole out this stupid gibberish which annoys me to no end, even to the point of turning it down in the options. The music also fits within the game but isn't spectacular. The menu's are pretty basic along with the game modes, you only have single-player games, scenarios and multi-player. So there isn't really much to keep you going once the game has fulfilled all your desires which should take around 15 hours but it has the ability to steal much of your time if your a true civ fan.

All in all, Civilization Revolution is a solid, perhap even strong game that shows that a strategy game can work on a console. Sure, it lacks some meat on it's bones but it's fun, challenging and does it's job, which is to entertain.

Gamepley - 8.5/10
Visuals -  7.5/10
Sound - 7/10
Longevity - 7.5/10

Overall - 8/10