thelibra
Future World Dictator
So, after reading all the bad press on CivFanatics about Civilization Revolutions, I rented CivRev from Blockbuster to give it a shot before buying it, figuring that, worst case scenario, I'd be out less than ten bucks and the time it took to play it, and I could make my own decision.
FRIDAY:
Struggled for the first few games to figure out how to play. Wasted a lot of time moving around, looking at the pretty graphics, and finding out about the map squares and stuff. Pulled my hair out. With no grid, no ability to turn on resource flags, no idea how to use them, can't figure out how to use my workers, I just pick Shaka and proceed to build army after relentless army and go on to an elimation victory. I end the night feeling very unimpressed, and of the opinion that I will definitely not be buying this game.
SATURDAY:
Since I paid for a 5 Day rental, there was no sense in just throwing that money away, so I popped in the game again and chose Gandhi this time and go for a cultural victory or something peaceful. I then realize just how awesome of a special ability Gandhi has in being able to have access to all resources right off the bat. I blunder a bit at trying to figure out how culture works, because I mistakenly still think Libraries and Universities produce culture. As a result, I pull ahead in tech, and I see another of the biggest complaints, everyone wages war against me unless I give them some awesome free tech. With everyone at war against me, I just concentrate on defending myself, and then realize I can just pwn the whole field due to my tech advantage. I give up on the cultural victory and swiftly achieve an elimination victory. The next game I play I achieve another elimination victory, but much faster because I realize all I have to do is take the capitals. The elimination victory is too easy. I vow to avoid it next game.
SUNDAY:
I play Caesar with the full intent of a Cultural Victory and manage to achieve it after a couple of rough starts (like starting on a 2-square island, no thanks). I finally win, though by the time I win, I could have easily performed another elimination victory. The cultural victory seemed even more pointless as by the time I was ready to achieve it, I didn't even care anymore what happened each turn, and the ending was beyond lackluster. And worse, the wonders expired so quickly that by the time I could crank them out they'd already become obsolete.
FINAL THOUGHTS:
Once I decided to try and enjoy CivRev as it's own game, and not as a scaled down version of Civ IV, it became a lot more fun. The game is fun, quite fun. I can easily see myself playing every so often, because I can set the controller down at any time to suddenly stop my son from eating the dog food, or help my wife with something, or stop the dogs from fighting, etc. It's extremely parent-friendly. I don't have to worry about screwing up my son's formative years like I would playing GTA4 in front of him. It has an enormous degree of replayability. It is a fine, if not very finely tuned, addition to the 360 titles, and a passable addition to the Civ series.
That said, instead of the trophies (dancing bears, fortune tellers, etc), I would much rather have had some kind of cool Winner Cutscene for each of the various victory types. The trophies were beyond pointless, and some of them were just downright depressing. The "jolly pastry chefs" made and threw pies at each other with all the joy and enthusiasm of a funeral procession. By the time I was ready to make the turns go by, I really wanted a "don't ask me if I want to view my trophy room" option.
And that was probably my biggest beef. The game has been designed specifically with the intent of streamlining the Civilization experience, and making a nice, short, playable game. Yet I have to sit through watching pointless enemy movements, notifications about stuff like government changes that I don't care about, I have to keep saying "no" to ridiculous demands for technologies I'm never going to give away, and I keep getting told about these jolly pastry chefs that I don't care about. In addition to that, I have to struggle to figure out where any resource less obvious than Uranium is, there's no zoom out option, no grid visibility, and no ability simply select a tech that I want to persue and let the scientist automatically switch according to what's needed to reach that tech.
Each of these things collectively add up to a good hour or three of wasted time. They might be fun to watch the first couple of times, but honestly, it turned a 1-2 hour game into a several hour game. For this to really hit it's mark, it really needs the option to "turn off" stuff, to change views, and set default decisions. All of these would speed up gameplay without subtracting from the true strengths of CivRev.
And it does have some great strengths, the game really does stand on its own merit if you don't play it thinking "This should be like Civ 4, only better, but it's not." It's not Civ 1-4, any more than "Colonization" is "Anno 1701" or that "Axis & Allies" is "Diplomacy", and if you approach it thinking that it should be, you will absolutely be disappointed. Instead, approach it from the standpoint of being a 4x game where the common goal is to win in a matter of a couple of hours, rather than weeks. This does not leave room for subtlety, and no opponent is going to be fooled by "peaceful" wins. You have to "force" the win as quickly as possible through whatever means your strengths allow.
With a few patches, and some interface tweaks, I could easily embrace this game into my library and spend many hours playing it, and eventually getting my son into it as his "training wheels" for Civ 5 and other 4x games.
FRIDAY:
Struggled for the first few games to figure out how to play. Wasted a lot of time moving around, looking at the pretty graphics, and finding out about the map squares and stuff. Pulled my hair out. With no grid, no ability to turn on resource flags, no idea how to use them, can't figure out how to use my workers, I just pick Shaka and proceed to build army after relentless army and go on to an elimation victory. I end the night feeling very unimpressed, and of the opinion that I will definitely not be buying this game.
SATURDAY:
Since I paid for a 5 Day rental, there was no sense in just throwing that money away, so I popped in the game again and chose Gandhi this time and go for a cultural victory or something peaceful. I then realize just how awesome of a special ability Gandhi has in being able to have access to all resources right off the bat. I blunder a bit at trying to figure out how culture works, because I mistakenly still think Libraries and Universities produce culture. As a result, I pull ahead in tech, and I see another of the biggest complaints, everyone wages war against me unless I give them some awesome free tech. With everyone at war against me, I just concentrate on defending myself, and then realize I can just pwn the whole field due to my tech advantage. I give up on the cultural victory and swiftly achieve an elimination victory. The next game I play I achieve another elimination victory, but much faster because I realize all I have to do is take the capitals. The elimination victory is too easy. I vow to avoid it next game.
SUNDAY:
I play Caesar with the full intent of a Cultural Victory and manage to achieve it after a couple of rough starts (like starting on a 2-square island, no thanks). I finally win, though by the time I win, I could have easily performed another elimination victory. The cultural victory seemed even more pointless as by the time I was ready to achieve it, I didn't even care anymore what happened each turn, and the ending was beyond lackluster. And worse, the wonders expired so quickly that by the time I could crank them out they'd already become obsolete.
FINAL THOUGHTS:
Once I decided to try and enjoy CivRev as it's own game, and not as a scaled down version of Civ IV, it became a lot more fun. The game is fun, quite fun. I can easily see myself playing every so often, because I can set the controller down at any time to suddenly stop my son from eating the dog food, or help my wife with something, or stop the dogs from fighting, etc. It's extremely parent-friendly. I don't have to worry about screwing up my son's formative years like I would playing GTA4 in front of him. It has an enormous degree of replayability. It is a fine, if not very finely tuned, addition to the 360 titles, and a passable addition to the Civ series.
That said, instead of the trophies (dancing bears, fortune tellers, etc), I would much rather have had some kind of cool Winner Cutscene for each of the various victory types. The trophies were beyond pointless, and some of them were just downright depressing. The "jolly pastry chefs" made and threw pies at each other with all the joy and enthusiasm of a funeral procession. By the time I was ready to make the turns go by, I really wanted a "don't ask me if I want to view my trophy room" option.
And that was probably my biggest beef. The game has been designed specifically with the intent of streamlining the Civilization experience, and making a nice, short, playable game. Yet I have to sit through watching pointless enemy movements, notifications about stuff like government changes that I don't care about, I have to keep saying "no" to ridiculous demands for technologies I'm never going to give away, and I keep getting told about these jolly pastry chefs that I don't care about. In addition to that, I have to struggle to figure out where any resource less obvious than Uranium is, there's no zoom out option, no grid visibility, and no ability simply select a tech that I want to persue and let the scientist automatically switch according to what's needed to reach that tech.
Each of these things collectively add up to a good hour or three of wasted time. They might be fun to watch the first couple of times, but honestly, it turned a 1-2 hour game into a several hour game. For this to really hit it's mark, it really needs the option to "turn off" stuff, to change views, and set default decisions. All of these would speed up gameplay without subtracting from the true strengths of CivRev.
And it does have some great strengths, the game really does stand on its own merit if you don't play it thinking "This should be like Civ 4, only better, but it's not." It's not Civ 1-4, any more than "Colonization" is "Anno 1701" or that "Axis & Allies" is "Diplomacy", and if you approach it thinking that it should be, you will absolutely be disappointed. Instead, approach it from the standpoint of being a 4x game where the common goal is to win in a matter of a couple of hours, rather than weeks. This does not leave room for subtlety, and no opponent is going to be fooled by "peaceful" wins. You have to "force" the win as quickly as possible through whatever means your strengths allow.
With a few patches, and some interface tweaks, I could easily embrace this game into my library and spend many hours playing it, and eventually getting my son into it as his "training wheels" for Civ 5 and other 4x games.
