PC gamers have had a hard time of it in recent years. They've watched helplessly as escalating software piracy and dwindling audiences have forced the platform's top publishers to slowly migrate their games to the more lucrative world of consoles. The latest blow? Sid Meier's Civilization. This brilliant and beloved franchise has been an age-old bastion of the PC gaming world, but it has just made its own strategic and impressive stride from dens and desks to living rooms and couches in the form of Civilization Revolution, an original game designed from the ground up for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.
The last time Mr. Meier tried to port his popular turn-based strategy series to a console was 10 years ago, when Civilization II came to the original PlayStation. A lacklustre game, long-time franchise fans found it too dumbed down and pined for a more nimble keyboard and mouse interface. Meanwhile, sofa-bound gamers newly introduced to the franchise wondered why so much fuss had ever been made over such a slow moving, bland looking game with awkward controls. It served to confirm many players' belief that the intricacies and complexities of Civilization were incongruous with home consoles.
Civilization Revolution, on the other hand, is a masterful reinvention of the Civilization experience that plays to the strengths of console gaming. It features fast-paced, streamlined play with which it is nigh impossible to become bored, and offers up a smart and intuitive gamepad interface that allows players to scroll through units and call up context sensitive menus at the touch of just a button or two.
Make no mistake; it is a pared down version of its PC forerunners. There are fewer unit types and buildings to construct. Game creation options are more limited-we cannot, for example, control the shape and size of the world map. And many of the PC game's more complicated elements-such as the ability to take a hands-on approach to land improvement-have simply been removed.
But the heart and soul of the game remains. Players still step into the shoes of their choice of famous world leaders, each of whom comes with his or her own set of attributes that result in military, cultural, and economic bonuses and drawbacks. And we can still decide how we want to play and win, be it through scientific enlightenment, cultural growth, brute militarism, or greedy capitalism. Indeed, we make strides towards each of these goals every time we invest in the development of new technologies, construct new cities, build new world wonders, or train new military units. Mr. Meier has even seen fit to include the franchise's impressively comprehensive Civilopedia; a collection of interesting and educational facts and trivia about the game's leaders, technologies, and units.
Mechanics and features aside, Revolution manages to evoke in its players the "just one more turn" mentality for which Civilization games are renowned. The first time I played, I found myself swearing time and again that I was just going to play one more turn, until, at 3:30 a.m., my wife awoke and found me in front of the television. She asked what I was doing. I looked at her with glazed eyed and mumbled the words, "it's Civilization, but, not computer, TV." She walked back into the bedroom, muttering something about how ironic the game's name was, given that it inspired such crude behaviour in its players.
I've painted Civilization's successful arrival on consoles as something of a death knell for PC gaming, and that's not entirely fair. After all, Mr. Meier has hardly given up on the PC platform; he plans to roll out a new expansion for Civilization IV called Colonization later this summer. Still, now that I can play Civilization on a console, one of the few remaining reasons I have to keep a gaming rig around has been lost.