Reviewers Note: Recently, I had the wonderful opportunity to review Civilization Revolution for both the Nintendo DS and Sony Playstation 3 (PS3) platforms. Since the back story and general description of game play is identical in both platforms, I decided to avoid needless repetition and included it only in the Nintendo DS review. To get the general gist about how the game is played, please see the Nintendo DS version of the review, then come back here for information specific to the PS3 platform.

Writing this review for Civilization Revolution for the PS3 was one of the hardest reviews I’ve had to write to date. Whenever I had to research some aspect of game play, strictly for accuracy’s sake, you understand, it invariably lead to a significant amount of time spent getting sidetracked with a side campaign or two. “Just a few more turns,” I’d find myself saying. “I’ve finally got Napoleon where I want him. I have to take out Paris before he offers to make peace with me and Congress makes me accept. Those spoilsports!” Yep, I had a lot of fun researching this review.

So just what is Civilization Revolution? If you’ve never played any version of Civilization, please see the game description I wrote on the review of Civilization Revolution for the Nintendo DS, then come back when you’re done. Don’t worry, I’ll wait.

All set? Great.

Concept:
Just to recap, you are the leader of one of a handful of fledgling civilizations, or civs, starting to make your mark on the world. As time goes on, you must build cities, discover technological advances, explore the world around you, create and sustain an economy, advance your culture, meet and maintain relationships with the leaders of your neighboring civs...um...oh yeah, while you’re doing that, be sure to protect yourself from invasion by Barbarians or warlike civs intent on your destruction.

Translation to the PS3 Platform:
The PS3 does a good job of making controller use easy and as intuitive as possible, although there have been several times when I had a unit “rest” for its turn instead of “move” by pressing the wrong button. With the Nintendo DS, you could tap on the unit again to reactivate it; not so with the PS3. There were also a few subtle game controller features that were nice to use, but I had to read about before finding them (see below).

The graphics are beautiful, and rather than a strictly overhead view of the terrain map of the world, the land is shown at a bit more of a tilt so that the people, buildings, and land features are more prominently featured. It’s easier to see just why that catapult isn’t going to make it up that mountain and how you might as well just plot a course around it. The cities are more solid, and you can see little workers and fishermen toiling away in the background as you move your military units around. With the extra detail, it was fun to see the differences in the cities and units as new eras came along. I was amused when the caravans, represented by camels at first, became convoys of trucks after I entered the Industrial Era.

The PS3 version also has extras, like the Trophy room: Chieftains from foreign lands occasionally send you gifts of performers for your amusement. You can find them entertaining the guests in your Trophy Room.  While it’s not necessary for game play, the little animations are cute. The kids and I particularly liked the pastry chefs who kept throwing pies in each other’s faces.

The foreign leaders and your domestic advisors all have more personality than could be depicted in the DS version. The advisors regularly upstage and get frustrated with each other, which helps make them seem more real, even though they speak in accented gibberish. It does make you question whether you’ve decided to risk war by not giving Elizabeth the secret of Writing because you think it’s tactically the right thing to do, or because her haughty smugness rubbed you the wrong way.

During game play, the world map centers on the unit whose turn it is to move, while information about the unit or the surrounding terrain shows on screen.  As with the DS version, when your military unit attacks another unit, animated units attack each other on screen (this is my 7-year-old’s favorite part). A thumbnail version of the world map would have been handy to get a quick gist of where you are in comparison to the rest of the world, but you do have the ability to move around and get information on units or terrain squares. As with the DS, I’d highly recommend playing your first game at “Chieftain” level with the tutorial on. With the domestic advisors popping in as they would in the higher levels, they do a good job of teaching the basics of movement and strategy without making the learning curve painfully dull.

Thankfully, the PS3 version has a “Civilopedia,” which is a compendium of the various units, terrain, technologies, wonders, etc. within the game. While it’s possible to get adequate information to play the game from the in-game notes on the screen, it’s helpful to have a reference to consult when you just don’t understand the difference between building a city on top of a grassland square with a cow versus building it next to the cow. It depends how deep into game mechanics you’d like to delve and at what difficulty level you’d like to play. You may even learn something about the real world while browsing in there. With the way it is set up, with right and left joysticks controlling folders and subfolders across the top and left of the screen, it can sometimes be a little hard to find specific information, though. Soon after getting a basic feel for the game, I’d highly recommend looking under “Interface” in the “Concepts” section for some tips on how to use some of the less intuitive game controller features.

PS3 Multiplayer Options:
There are options to play against other players through the Playstation Network (Player Match, Ranked Match), play against friends in your system’s “buddy” list (Friends), or play over a local area network (LAN Party). In each of these options, you can play Head-to-Head (2 opposing humans, 3 random computer characters), Teams (2 teams of 2 humans each, 1 random computer character, or Free-for-All (4 opposing humans, 1 random computer character). Unfortunately I was not able to review this function, since at the time that I looked, there were no other players available on the network for me to play.

There is also The Game of the Week. A particular scenario is posted every Sunday on the Playstation Network. All players downloading this game will play starting from the same position. The best scores and quickest victories will be posted online. The downside of this is that there is no way to “save” your game, which they say is to “prevent cheating and ensure an identical experience for all users.” I suppose this is so a player doesn’t save his game when things are going well, then try something risky, fail, then go back to the saved game and do something else. Unfortunately, for those of us who don’t have unlimited use of the family TV, this is hard to reserve time for.

Overall Impressions:
Nikolai, my 7-year-old world-dominator-in-training is loving this game (he plays in “Chieftain” mode, the easiest). His favorite activity is watching his armies take on enemies. He’s also found the diplomacy screen to be useful in starting wars so he can attack neighboring civs. Hopefully someday he’ll see the importance of building cultural wonders and great universities and city infrastructure, but realistically, probably not for a while. He’s not all destruction, though. He also thinks the Trophy Room is a blast and likes to look at his cities. While the city graphics are well done, it’s not that easy to sit back and admire your handiwork. I would’ve loved to see a virtual tour through the streets, or to see a wonder close up, especially with the graphical capabilities that I know the PS3 can handle. Maybe in the next version.

Firaxis did a great job with this game, allowing a wide variety of gaming experiences, depending on how the player would like to play. For the novice, it’s easy to learn the basics. For the long-time fan, there are new tools to be used, new strategies to implement, and new nuances to explore to keep you engaged for a long time. As for me, I need to see if my air strike against Paris will give me the advantage I need for my motley crew of artillery and knights to take the city. Back into the fray I go!