2K Games released a demo of Sid Meier's Civilization Revolution last week on Playstation 3 and Xbox 360, while the game itself will be released on the 11th of July. I have been without a computer for a week and unable to do any gameplay videos of the demo, but here are at least some images from it.
2K Games fact sheet:
Title: Sid Meier’s Civilization® Revolution™
Publisher: 2K Games
Developer: Firaxis Games
Platform: PLAYSTATION®3 computer entertainment system, Xbox 360® videogame and entertainment system from Microsoft
ESRB Rating: E10+ (Everyone 10 and older)
Release Date: July 8, 2008
Web Site: http://www.civilizationrevolution.com/
Product Overview:
Sid Meier’s Civilization® Revolution™ is the latest offering in the legendary award winning Sid Meier’s Civilization® series of strategy games, featuring the famous “just one more turn” addictive gameplay that has made it one of the greatest game series of all time. Sid Meier’s Civilization Revolution has been designed and built (by the legendary Sid Meier and his team at Firaxis) from the ground up for consoles and handhelds delivering graphics, gameplay and controls that take full advantage of the hugely popular gaming platforms.
Sid Meier’s Civilization Revolution is a watershed game offering players a chance to experience the epic empire building world of Civilization in a whole new way – in an accessible, visually immersive, fast paced, action-packed world that gamers crave.
Franchise Overview:
Hall of Fame Game designer, Sid Meier, has been called “The Father of Computer Gaming” with such early hits as F-15 Stealth Fighter, Railroad Tycoon, and Pirates. He put computer gaming on the map, however, in 1991, when he delivered Sid Meier’s Civilization to the gaming world, launching the “God Game” genre and creating one of the most award winning and addicting games on the planet. Civilization remains one of the world’s top selling PC game series with over 8 million units sold and is recognized by the press as one of the greatest game franchises ever created.
In Civilization, players strive to become Ruler of the World by establishing and leading a civilization from the dawn of man into the space age waging war, conducting diplomacy, discovering technologies, going head-to-head with some of history’s greatest leaders, and building the most powerful empire the world has ever known.
Features:
● Choose Your Civ – Choose from 16 Civilizations throughout history (from Africa to Germany to America to China) to lead to victory. Each time you defeat a rival civilization you’ll add an exhibit to your Hall of Achievements paying homage to your great accomplishments
● Intense Combat – Triple your strength by combining up to three units into one powerful army and destroy your enemies. When your units win tough battles, they will become veterans and then elites. You can then choose from a list of powerful upgrades that will give elite units even more strength to dominate in war. Your Army will wear a distinct uniform representing your Civilization, so you will easily see them on the screen as you lead them into battle
· Xbox Live and PSN - Up to four players can battle as teams, head to head, or have a complete free-for-all online. Auto-matching, ranked games, leaderboards, and achievements make the online play more versatile and fun than any previous version of Civilization. Additionally, Xbox Live and PSN users will be able to download multiplayer maps and scenarios post launch
· Custom Made for the Console: Developed from the ground up to take advantage of the hardware, Civilization Revolution introduces an intuitive control scheme, advanced physics, cutting edge visuals, 5.1 surround sound and the non-stop action that console fans have been craving
· Accessible for Newcomers and Longtime Fans: Guided tutorials teach players the necessary tools that will put them on the fast track to global dominance
· Game of the Week: Each week, a new map will be highlighted that players can compete in. Finish the game with the highest score you can achieve, and have it posted to the Civ Game of the Week leader boards to see how you stack up against players around the globe!
All comments (16)
I WANT IT!
I really despise the developers though... they put that turn limit at just the right place to piss ya off ... i mean right as its getting really good "you have 10 turns left" ... i've never screamed so much in my life and it did it to me 5 times LOL
This games going to be a lot bigger than people think... i have 3 people in my house that rockband is the only game they played (2 girls and 1 young kid) and they saw me playing this demo and instantly were hooked, the easy controls, nice stepped gameplay and graphics along with the whole history aspect was like an instant sell...
its like RISK with good graphics and plots
It offers perfect replay value and is totally under recognised. These "Doom Clones" have had a good run and some spectacular shows, but RTS currently offer something new and as people are discovering with this, something totally different and fun.
Halo Wars will offer an interesting side, while Civ offrs a different appeal. Basically, no 2 games have a basic linear forumla like FPS do. I cannot wait to see what happens in the future of this genre!
High Hopes (Y)
As for Civ 5, it is Civ IV but easier to be honest. Good job I like that fact :P Used to love controlling the worlds supply of oil and then not allowing anybody else the resource. Therefore, I would have access to all late-tech machines and everybody else would still be trying to prod me out of the sky with their spears :P
It offers perfect replay value and is totally under recognised. These "Doom Clones" have had a good run and some spectacular shows, but RTS currently offer something new and as people are discovering with this, something totally different and fun.
Halo Wars will offer an interesting side, while Civ offrs a different appeal. Basically, no 2 games have a basic linear forumla like FPS do. I cannot wait to see what happens in the future of this genre!
High Hopes (Y)
As for Civ 5, it is Civ IV but easier to be honest. Good job I like that fact :P Used to love controlling the worlds supply of oil and then not allowing anybody else the resource. Therefore, I would have access to all late-tech machines and everybody else would still be trying to prod me out of the sky with their spears :P
TBS (Turn-Based Strategy) = You take turns.
RTS (Real-Time Strategy) = Everything happens in real time.
As for the linear nature of strategy games, many have argued that Strategy games are amongst the most linear of games, traditionally requiring a startup phase that doesn't have any real distinct/meaningful decisions within the first few minutes.
Take Warcraft 3 for example. Playing as orc, you're going to build the following:
Altar, Burrow, Barrrack, Burrow while getting 5 peons to be put on the gold mine and 3-6 peons to work on wood collection. You do this 99% of the time and it never changes, yet it takes up several minutes of game time each time. There's a lot of linear motions you have to walk through and only in more recent games like Warhammer 40K: Dawn of War and Company of Heroes has there been any real changes.
Also, I meant how FPS follow that overused structure. Story, give a mission, fight through enemies to objection. FPS do work very very well for multiplayer though, Strategy games are more at home in single player.
As a person who buys at least 5 strategy games a year, I can tell you that TBS is never as popular in multiplayer as RTS.
Looking at recent TBS games (such as Civ 4) we can see that waiting for your opponent to take a turn, especially if s/he has 5+ bases to manage and 5+ armies, could take a good 5 minutes of waiting in between each turn. You will probably not even be able to see all their movements, thus being fog of war'd out of the game and doing nothing for that timespan. This creates a huge problem in multiplayer because you're constantly asking people to wait (which is only compounded even further when you add more players). Only in Japanese SRPGs (such as Advanced Wars) where you're limited to very few moves on a very small map is it tolerable.
Whereas RTS has dominated the market in terms of multiplayer and provides players with quicker games and constant play.
While I think Civilization Revolution will be fun and great to play, I have huge doubts that it will revolutionize anything because of the fact that its Civ. It'll take time to wait for people (half or more of your time in the game will be spent waiting), multiplayer games will likely last at least 2 hours, going onto 5-10 hours possibly with more players.
If anything is going to persuade the mainstream to play strategy games, its going to be RTS where games will be on average of 10-15 mins.
As far as Civ Rev, I really like the few additions they've made to the game, the who army system and overrunning cities. I only ever set all my workers to automatic in Civ 4 as well. I also like little things how you get more out of taking a barbarian city now (info and gold). I worry that the pace is a little fast and the civilization evolutions aren't as pronounced as they could/should be.
I'll definitely be getting it when it's a little cheaper though. And it's great to see at least some developers haven't forgotten about system link :)