Civilization Revolution (Xbox 360)

All the flavor with half the calories -- finally, a Civ game worth playing on the consoles.
8/20/2008 12:00 AM | 1 Comments | Page 1 of 3

Why update a classic? Why fix what's not broke? Why not just leave well enough alone? Civilization started out as a perfect game 17 years ago, and all that time later remains a perfect game -- one simply frosted with different flavors from time to time to attract new fans.

Looking back at the history of Civilization, all one can do is marvel about how unlikely it was in the first place. If a turn-based strategy game based on developing a civilization -- wildly mixing historical fact and fiction, famous names and impossible timelines -- seemed like a good concept, then making it so complex that it needed an in-game encyclopedia must surely have been a wrong turn. And who would play a game in which you could win by building cultural institutions, and part of the fun was deciding whether or not to send your citizens into the forest to harvest lumber or into the hills to mine for minerals? The mind boggled. It still does.

But in the good old days of gaming, no matter how bad the idea, a few dedicated and perhaps slightly nutty guys could bring it to life. What might have made the list of "worst videogame ideas ever" has instead become an elemental design that's often copied by other games, but never distilled from its original, purest form.

If you're a fan of any of the past four major Civ versions, expansions and spin-offs, Civilization Revolution -- the latest Civilization game and the first serious effort to retool the game for the console -- stands out like light beer in a biker bar. Sure, it's Civ, but what have they done to it? Trimmed-down to fit the control and display limitations of the console, it looks like designer Sid Meier and company have evaporated their stout classic into a mere wisp of its former self -- Civ Lite, Civ for Dummies, Diet Civ.

Determined to give the game a shot, loyal series fan that you are, you load it up on the Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3 (the games are basically identical across the two platforms), ready to give it a fair shake. But really, you're just going through the motions to cement your derision of the thing -- this mini-van of the Civ world, made generic and stripped of style and class to appeal to the "mainstream."

You fire up the tutorial level as Abe Lincoln, supreme ruler of the Americans. After you have workers collecting resources and a military unit exploring the fog surrounding your first city, a cartoon battle filled with yells and clanging swords ensues when you stumble across a barbarian tribe. After you walk away with some gold and a few angry comments from the local warlord about losing his village, you flip through the well-organized in-game Civopedia and plot out a strategy for military dominance, starting with researching pottery. Dorky 3-D advisors bob onto the screen to cheer your decision with contextual hints as they jabber away in a language that sounds an awful lot like The Sims' "Simlish." Nonetheless, with visions of world domination growing, you crank out more troops, start expanding your borders, generate streams of settlers to found the fledgling cities that will fuel your war machine, and start the slow, inevitable march toward your global victory.