Sid Meier's Civilization: Revolution

aka: CivRev
Moby ID: 35117
Xbox 360 Specs
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Description official descriptions

Revolution is a turn-based strategy game about development and territorial expansion, with sixteen distinct civilizations from prehistoric times to the future. Not counting Silent Service, it is the second console-only Sid Meier branded game, the first being Sid Meier's C.P.U. Bach, and it is the first in the Civilization sub series to be released on console platforms.

Specifically built up with console controls in mind, the original gameplay is intact but with stripped-down complexity. The available civilizations include America, England, Japan, Aztec, China, India, Mongolia, Rome, Egypt, France, Arabia, Greece, Spain, Germany, Zulu and Russia, each with their own leaders (e.g. Julius Caesar, Abraham Lincoln) and specific perks. Another civilization, the Barbarians, is not playable and they constantly wage war with the other ones. Gameplay sessions are generally shorter with fewer victory conditions and simplified city management. The possible strategies are still very open, as the four victory conditions are Domination, Technology, Economic and Cultural. Players can either build vast armies and try to dominate the other civilizations to capture their cities (Domination), or use a more subtle, diplomatic approach to gain the upper hand. There is a technology tree to eventually move into space and be the first to reach Alpha Centauri (Technology), players can try to create a World Back earn 20,000 gold (Economic), or build twenty wonders (Cultural).

Units are often specific for a certain civilization and gain experience, as well as through research, to access upgrades. That way, a catapult can eventually become a tank. The focus is as usual on micromanagement. The two single-player modes allow for straight matches against AI players or rather fixed scenarios to complete. Multiplayer is supported for up to four players, free-for-all or with teams.

Spellings

  • シヴィライゼーション レボリューション - Japanese spelling

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Credits (Xbox 360 version)

304 People (272 developers, 32 thanks) · View all

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 83% (based on 70 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.5 out of 5 (based on 14 ratings with 1 reviews)

One step forward and ten steps back

The Good
The animation is pretty good, the character models all look interesting and I like how their outfits change depending on the age you are in.

The game is more accessible and easy to learn which makes it a nice entry point for people who are new to the Civ games.

The fights look really awesome especially when you engage in dog-fights with aircraft.

The Bad
Every character has the same dialog boxes over and over again and it doesn't help that they speak in gibberish that sounds worse then the voices from Grabbed by the Ghoulies.

The difficulty settings are broken. Sometimes I would play on the easiest option and have a harder time then when I played on a medium difficulty. Playing a game on easy where the enemy players find all the Ancient Artifacts before I create my first boat and build cities all around me like Settlers were part of a Happy Meal is not good game design.

There was really no strategy involved. If I wanted to take over an enemy city I would just bomb the place for a few turns while piling up a few tank armies on the same square of land. I here Civ 5 fixed this, but in this game the only war strategy you need is "have more tanks".

I haven't played a lot of Civ games, but aren't matches in this game supposed to take long? I could play an entire match in this game in less than an hour and the only reason I played it for a long time was to get the achievements, speaking of which.

Some of the achievements are as unreasonable as they can get. The one that got me the most frustration is the one where you need to get all the Great people at least once. This wouldn't be such a problem if I could pick which people I wanted, but this is not the case. Whenever you get enough Culture you get a random person and have to roll with it.

The Bottom Line
I didn't have fun with Civ Revolution, the first three rounds or so were fun, but after that the fun made place for annoyance: annoying gibberish, annoying difficulty and annoying simplicity. To be fair, the graphics are decent and for newcomers this is the perfect introduction to the Civ franchise, but for people who already played one these it is not even worth trying.

Xbox 360 · by Asinine (957) · 2011

Trivia

1001 Video Games

Sid Meier's Civilization Revolution appears in the book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die by General Editor Tony Mott.

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Sciere.

Additional contributors: Foxhack, Starbuck the Third, Plok, FatherJack.

Game added July 29, 2008. Last modified March 23, 2024.