The word is that Civilization: Revolution has been completely built from scratch for the consoles, in order to make best use of the platforms. Just as you did on the PC, your general aim is to try and become the ruler of the world, by establishing a leading civilization. You start off at the dawn of man and work your way through historical periods, until you potentially end up waging a space age war. Along the way, you’ll discover various technologies, go head-to-head with various historical leaders and build your empire. But you already knew that, right?
For our play session, four of us were crammed (and by crammed we mean nicely spaced) into a room, and with pizza, chips and beer at our side and we were all set for a long play session. Even though we didn’t reach the four hours that would have prompted a ‘take a break’ message from Civilization 4, we’re told that it wouldn’t be present in this game. The possible reason for this, was that the console versions we’re looking to provide a faster-paced game, with more accessible maps and a streamlined time scale. Console players can look forward to 4-player online matches, as well as a new map made by Firaxis to be released each week for download.
One step at a time.
Our multiplayer matches were divided into two-on-two battles, though the map that we played on had CPU players as well. With 16 different civilizations to play as, we randomly decided to play as the Indians, and we took on the Japanese (human) and the Mongols (CPU). Apparently, there were Russians as well, but they seem to be wiped out rather quickly... Initially, the Mongols befriended us and we both went after the Japanese, all the while we built our city, expanded our empire and got rid of those pesky barbarians that were littered around our settlement. About half way through, the Mongols turned on us by taking one of out recently settled and unguarded cities, so we befriended the Japanese and set our sites on some revenge.
Funnily enough, once we’d taken back our city and set about decimating their main city, the Mongol’s leader, Genghis Khan tried to repair relations… What a cheeky devil. It was within this micro interaction through out the whole macro experience that really told us that we were onto something pretty sweet with this game. Even in a two hour play session, we couldn't have hoped to have even scratched the surface of the game's potential. In fact, we'd barely made out way a fifth of the way down the game's massive tech tree. Through out the game, our advisors and relations with other participants crop up real time, feeding us some cleverly written and entertaining dialogue. The Civilopedia is there somewhere in the game, but we didn't get to see it.
As most fans would know, the Civilization series has been turn-based. For those who have never played before, it can take some getting used to. However, Civilization: Revolution no longer requires the player to wait their turn. Each player will be making their moves when they're ready. While it did make for a smoother game, we felt that it could have run better, as there were occasions where it seemed that we were stuck between turns. Still, we're not sure whether this was due to the game's rules or due to the fact that this was an early build (70% complete apparently).
And soon... The world!
So while Civilization: Revolution seems to have all the features in place, there is one aspect of the game that will certainly make or break the experience, and that is the game’s controls. While both the Xbox 360 and PS3 are capable of supporting a keyboard and mouse, there’s no word of any in-game support, so you’ll likely be stuck with the controller pad. There was certainly a learning curve around them, but the controls are reasonably well streamlined and became usable after a while. The issues that we had though, we’re that they’d often feel slippery. So you’d go to move a unit and end up moving a square or two more then you intended. That, and there were times were we didn’t know when we could or could not access the options that were being shown in front of us, but this may have been due to the turn-based nature of the game.
As mentioned above, the build that we had access to was still relatively early, so it would be unfair to pass full judgement over the game's presentation. From what we saw though, things are looking quite promising. The game has a rather distinctive and exaggerated artstyle, which not only helps in dialogue sequences, but in recognising your characters on the battlefield. At first glance, it may not appear that the game is that taxing on the system. That is until you realise that how well it's still running when there are many, many things going on at once in the one multiplayer map. Work is obviously still needed but it seems to be heading in the right direction.
In terms of content, Sid Meier's Civilization: Revolution is unlikely to disappoint. It might take a bit of time to get used to new streamlined format, but from what we played, it has lost very little, if any of it's addictive appeal. The crunch comes down to whether the game's interface and controls will hold up with a conventional game pad. At this stage, we can't tell which way it will swing, namely because there is a realistic scope for improvement, as well as proper tutorial. Unlike past RTS attempts which were primiarly direct ports, Sid Meier's Civilization: Revolution has a real chance of being a great console RTS game.
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