by pinback » Tue Jun 09, 2009 12:52 pm
I am going to take some heat for this! If not from any of you people, then from my mental image of Finsternis, who continues to belittle and patronize me even when we do not actually communicate in real life.
Today I will be discussing Civilization: Revolution for the Xbox 360. This is a game I first rented from Blockbuster, because I'd played every other variety of Civilization, and though I sort of knew what I was in for, the thought of playing it on a big HD screen, sitting on a couch was too much to resist.
Civilization: Revolution (CivRev) as you probably know is the console version of Civilization. Due to controller limitations and shortening attention spans, the game was re-built for consoles, with a result resembling a streamlined version of Civ 4. You can call it a "stripped down" version if you want. You can call it a "dumbed down" version if you want. You can call it a version "for retards" if you want. Old-school PC Civ players have all probably done just that.
I almost want to call it "Civ Lite", but I think it's more appropriate to call the original, PC version "Civ Heavy". In CivRev, we actually have a version of Civ with plenty of strategy, plenty of that addictive quality we all know Civ to serve out by the vatload, plenty of character,
but you can finish a game without sacrificing an entire weekend! It's Civilization with the gas pedal held down.
And the amazing part is, you don't feel like anything's really missing, because many of the parts that were streamlined, really, truly deserved to be.
Right from the start, you'll face the most surprising omission from the game: Configuration options! Well, no, there are still two options left: Which leader do you want to be, and which of the five difficulty levels do you want to play at.
Everything else is out of your control, which is to say there is really only one option: Play against four other randomly chosen civs, on a specific size map, with a specific generation algorithm. To any real Civ player, this seems like sacrilege, and would be reason enough not to even hit "start". But look, if you want to set up a huge map, make it a Waterworld planet, and play against 10 other Civs, you are not going to play CivRev anyway. This is Couch Civilization, and the one map style you DO get is perfectly suited for that. The map is small enough to be manageable, large enough to fit a decent number of opponents on, but not so large that you have to wait very long for things to get going.
I
like the idea of a Civilization that I can play in three hours. I have Civ4 on my desktop, always, but never play it, because just loading it up makes me tired, and I don't even have that kind of time anymore.
Other omissions from the PC version: Workers are now abstracted. This, by itself, almost makes CivRev a better game than its older brother. Fucking Workers, man. The most tedious, boring part of an already languidly paced game. Now, none of that shit. If you learn how to build workshops, you just choose it from the build menu, and then voila, all of your hills are producing more hammers. Roads? You just pick a "from" city, and a "to" city, pay some money, and BLAM, there's your road. Though I will miss some of the niceties and depth from Civ4, it will be hard to go back to it after playing this.
Religion is gone, except for the "Religion" tech. I sort of liked the whole Religion aspect of Civ4, but again, with a game this fun, fast, and addictive, it is not missed much.
Culture, Great People, and Wonders are all in the game, but again, in a slightly more straightforward way. Really, everything about Civ that was complicated is in some way simplified in this game, but simplified the
right way, by taking out complexities that didn't really give you anything. Even the Civilopedia was redesigned with an elegant brilliance that makes finding what you want to find out a snap, even with a lowly Xbox controller.
Four victory conditions -- Military, Alpha Centauri, Economic (make a lot of money and build the World Bank wonder), and Cultural, which is interesting because this requires you get 20 Wonders, Great People, or culture-flipped cities, in any combination.
Graphics look like Civ4, but nicer. Sound is just fine, save for some of the advisors that jump on the screen and shout gibberish at you a little too often.
By far my biggest (and one of my only) complaint is the map, and your options for viewing it. The default camera view is what I would call "way too zoomed in", and the only control you have is, if you press the left trigger, it temporarily zooms out to a view I would call "a little too zoomed in". Adding to this frustration is the fact that, if you can believe it, there is no mini-map, nor even a button to bring up a "global map" overlay or anything. Way Too Zoomed In is where you're stuck. If the map size you are forced to play on was any bigger, this would be an inexcusable omission. As it is, though, it's possible to keep your bearings, but it's not nearly as easy as it should have been.
Look, if you're a Civ purist, you haven't stopped peeing on this game since it came out last year. Back in an earlier life, I might even have joined you. But I have four dogs, two cats, two tarantulas, a girl, a job, and a lawn to mow, and I'll tell you this: It's been a while since I've had so much fun with a Civ game, and though I'll always appreciate and admire the staggering depth and involvement that a game of PC Civ offers the dedicated player,
I don't think I'll ever go back.
FOUR (****) STARS
I am going to take some heat for this! If not from any of you people, then from my mental image of Finsternis, who continues to belittle and patronize me even when we do not actually communicate in real life.
Today I will be discussing Civilization: Revolution for the Xbox 360. This is a game I first rented from Blockbuster, because I'd played every other variety of Civilization, and though I sort of knew what I was in for, the thought of playing it on a big HD screen, sitting on a couch was too much to resist.
Civilization: Revolution (CivRev) as you probably know is the console version of Civilization. Due to controller limitations and shortening attention spans, the game was re-built for consoles, with a result resembling a streamlined version of Civ 4. You can call it a "stripped down" version if you want. You can call it a "dumbed down" version if you want. You can call it a version "for retards" if you want. Old-school PC Civ players have all probably done just that.
I almost want to call it "Civ Lite", but I think it's more appropriate to call the original, PC version "Civ Heavy". In CivRev, we actually have a version of Civ with plenty of strategy, plenty of that addictive quality we all know Civ to serve out by the vatload, plenty of character, [i]but you can finish a game without sacrificing an entire weekend![/i] It's Civilization with the gas pedal held down.
And the amazing part is, you don't feel like anything's really missing, because many of the parts that were streamlined, really, truly deserved to be.
Right from the start, you'll face the most surprising omission from the game: Configuration options! Well, no, there are still two options left: Which leader do you want to be, and which of the five difficulty levels do you want to play at. [i]Everything else[/i] is out of your control, which is to say there is really only one option: Play against four other randomly chosen civs, on a specific size map, with a specific generation algorithm. To any real Civ player, this seems like sacrilege, and would be reason enough not to even hit "start". But look, if you want to set up a huge map, make it a Waterworld planet, and play against 10 other Civs, you are not going to play CivRev anyway. This is Couch Civilization, and the one map style you DO get is perfectly suited for that. The map is small enough to be manageable, large enough to fit a decent number of opponents on, but not so large that you have to wait very long for things to get going.
I [i]like[/i] the idea of a Civilization that I can play in three hours. I have Civ4 on my desktop, always, but never play it, because just loading it up makes me tired, and I don't even have that kind of time anymore.
Other omissions from the PC version: Workers are now abstracted. This, by itself, almost makes CivRev a better game than its older brother. Fucking Workers, man. The most tedious, boring part of an already languidly paced game. Now, none of that shit. If you learn how to build workshops, you just choose it from the build menu, and then voila, all of your hills are producing more hammers. Roads? You just pick a "from" city, and a "to" city, pay some money, and BLAM, there's your road. Though I will miss some of the niceties and depth from Civ4, it will be hard to go back to it after playing this.
Religion is gone, except for the "Religion" tech. I sort of liked the whole Religion aspect of Civ4, but again, with a game this fun, fast, and addictive, it is not missed much.
Culture, Great People, and Wonders are all in the game, but again, in a slightly more straightforward way. Really, everything about Civ that was complicated is in some way simplified in this game, but simplified the [i]right[/i] way, by taking out complexities that didn't really give you anything. Even the Civilopedia was redesigned with an elegant brilliance that makes finding what you want to find out a snap, even with a lowly Xbox controller.
Four victory conditions -- Military, Alpha Centauri, Economic (make a lot of money and build the World Bank wonder), and Cultural, which is interesting because this requires you get 20 Wonders, Great People, or culture-flipped cities, in any combination.
Graphics look like Civ4, but nicer. Sound is just fine, save for some of the advisors that jump on the screen and shout gibberish at you a little too often.
By far my biggest (and one of my only) complaint is the map, and your options for viewing it. The default camera view is what I would call "way too zoomed in", and the only control you have is, if you press the left trigger, it temporarily zooms out to a view I would call "a little too zoomed in". Adding to this frustration is the fact that, if you can believe it, there is no mini-map, nor even a button to bring up a "global map" overlay or anything. Way Too Zoomed In is where you're stuck. If the map size you are forced to play on was any bigger, this would be an inexcusable omission. As it is, though, it's possible to keep your bearings, but it's not nearly as easy as it should have been.
Look, if you're a Civ purist, you haven't stopped peeing on this game since it came out last year. Back in an earlier life, I might even have joined you. But I have four dogs, two cats, two tarantulas, a girl, a job, and a lawn to mow, and I'll tell you this: It's been a while since I've had so much fun with a Civ game, and though I'll always appreciate and admire the staggering depth and involvement that a game of PC Civ offers the dedicated player, [i]I don't think I'll ever go back.[/i]
FOUR (****) STARS
[img]http://moltobenny.com/civrev.jpg[/img]