Genre: Turn-Based Strategy
Developer: Firaxis
System I Played On: Xbox 360
Year: 2008
Revolution is my first and only game I’ve played in the Civilization universe, so if I don’t sound like I know what I’m talking about, or if I say something obvious, my bad. But as far as strategy games go, I play games on console or handheld (handhelds lightly) so for anybody not working with a PC, big strategy games aren’t as common. That being said, Revolution is a fantastic game on the Xbox 360. Like from what I heard from other Civ games, you pick your Civilization based on the most powerful civilizations in real life, and each one has their own leader. Abe Lincoln for America for example, Mao for China, Napoleon for French, and not Hitler for Germany. I know that a lot of people wouldn’t like that, but if they had Hitler for an Easter egg somehow, that would have been great. By now Hitler is people usually look at comedical, so it’s not like it’s hurting anything. Then once you have your people, you start in the stone age. Slowly you rise from the stone ages throughout time, and as this happens your people change as well as the other civilizations gradually change. Meeting Civilizations is basically shit. They’re there to mostly fuck with you. They start wars for their convince a lot of the times, they annoy you by asking trades and threats, and the trades are never good. It’s like "Oh, hey, I will teach you how to shoot bow and arrows if you teach me how to build a government, that’s a good deal right?” So to not get destroyed you have to keep an army handy at all times. But that’s kind of tricky when it’s a race to see who can win the other three ways to win. The four ways to win are domination, (kill pretty much everybody) technology, (create a space station that will move to a new planet) economically, (make the world bank by obtaining 20,000 gold coins) or culturally, (obtain 20 world wonders or people then make the united nations) And there is also a clock, so if nobody makes it in time whoever is farthest along will win by domination. Each way you’ll want to know where your going for from the beginning, because you’ll need that extra strategy. The whole game has a very cartoon look. It looks kind of child friendly, and the each of the world leaders and your assistants who ask you decisions, (by the way they dress differently over the ages, which is a nice touch) they all appear very animated and childish, and it actually gets a laugh as they do comedic things. Anyway, there are many variables. First you need good land for your village, because where you set your village changes which resources you’ll have. You need to try and get near water or some place that will help your technology, and will have to have a place where food raises enough so your village keeps growing. If your civilization has a weakness of lack of technology or isn’t growing at all, your not going to do well on higher difficulties. Speaking of difficulties, they actually make the game really great. The achievements on the Xbox helped me keep playing, and trying to get better, and I was able to even compete on the highest difficulty level. That being said I will state what I hate about the god damn highest difficulty. You will have to play for hours, and then you could be good until the last ten minutes, then you lose! Your whole fucking day is shot because fucking Gandh whoi never even actually lead India wanted to come and take that one city you forgot was unprotected. But I will say just how fun the world is when it’s changing. First time is being tossed around like crazy. You’ll spend like ten turns doing nothing, but later when your in modern day, each turn takes like a minute, and you’ll have to make big decisions. But being in the modern day is really fun. You literally start with a couple dudes with swords, and end with tanks, machine gun guys, and you can nuke a city! Yes, after hours of build up, one city is able to be taken out in one move! By far the most satisfying feeling is taking out a capital, take it, and see as little Napoleon bitches off as he is upset. For me this proves a strategy game can be played on a console, and it can be really fun. It’s one of few games I can play on the highest difficultly setting, and it really isn’t that hard once you know how to play. It’s fun to see when your wiping out the other places, and is just as fun when you are making wonders and people left and right, and your culture is so high you can have the other nations just decide they’re apart of you. It’s like they don’t even ask, they just declare themselves part of your people. But it’s a complete game, proving a good strategy game on the console exists. Whether it’s killing barbarians who think they’re hot shit or taking pride in your epic ship that you created to find a new planet, it’s a lot of fun, and probably the most fun I’ve had in a pure strategy game. Next time I just don’t want after what feels like half an hour of gameplay see that I spend half the day wasting time if I lost.
