A modern day Risk for the masses.
Civ Rev is the first game of the series that I have touched. From what I hear, this is a more stripped-down version of the game, but just as addictive and fun. The reason for this is because it's on a console, and what they do with the game is take away the more tedious processes while tuning the controls making it easy for any strategy lover.
Pros
+Addictive and strategic.
+Intuitive interface.
+Charismatic leaders.
+Interesting progression of civilizations.
Cons
-Your advisors speak annoying gibberish.
-Slower paced, definitely not for everyone.
-Riflemen can destroy fighter planes, granted this is all based on stats.
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Gameplay
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As you may understand, the point of Civ Rev is to take a civilization from 1600 AD to the future. You pick from one of the 16 leaders featuring famous and well-known names such as Lincoln for America or Cleoptra for Egypt. Your goal is to win by achieving one of 4 possibilities: Economic, Cultural, Domination, or Technology victories. When you begin the game you'll start off with a settler, choose where to begin your first capitol, churn out a couple warriors and begin exploring and advancing. You usually face off against 4 or so opponents, and whether you wish to make peace or war is entirely up to you. Eventually you'll go through a few eras making ground, water, and even air units.
The fascinating thing is how they develop, you may start out with warriors using swords, but then you will be using horsemen, riflemen, canons, battleships, submarines, all the way up to nukes. As you develop your town it becomes asthetically beautiful, making for an interesting concept. It's not surprising to see a Babylonian Garden in the same vicinity as a launch pad for rocketships.
Another part of the strategy is how you interact with aides and leaders who will constantly annoy you with mostly useless information (once you understand the game anyway). Thankfully there are 5 different difficulties challenging you to a variety of extents, from Chieftan to Deity. There's also a multiplayer addition, where you have 3 game modes to choose from (head to head, free for all, team).
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Graphics/Sound
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Graphics are bright, colorful and cartoony with a light-hearted sense of humor. All of the civilization leaders are overdramatic in their features which makes it so different, and the cities look awesome when you're nearing the end of the game and you have 25 buildings crammed into a single city. Sounds of your aides is annoying, but you can turn off their gibberish.
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Value
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Civ Rev retails at $59.99. Depending on how you feel about strategy games, this can give you quite a bit of replayability. On top of the regular games which last an hour and a half to 2 and a half hours, there are a couple scenarios with pre-defined objectives. Then there are the multiplayer modes, and of course achievements. If you are a bit iffy on this game, there's a demo on the marketplace you can give a try since it has most of the features as the full game.
[Just to note, this review was originally on my GS account which is why it's in the current format.]
