Micro Review (handheld edition) featuring Sid Meier's Civilization Revolution

Micro Review Handheld Edition
Sid Meier's Civilization Revolution

When it comes to world building strategy gaming on the DS the experience for me to date has been decidedly hit or miss.

Maybe it is a fairly decent though ultimately shallow experience like Age of Empires Age of Kings. Maybe its an engaging though ultimately one trick pony like city building sim Sim City Creator, or its an oh my god this game is impossible even after reading the gamefaq walkthrough 1606 aka Age of Discovery! Either way the simple matter of fact is that I don't have the best track record with city or world building sims on the DS. Does this game change that? Well... yes, but I emphasis that with astericks and warnings that this can fulfill your world building needs... if shown a proper respect of its limitations and shortcomings.

The main driving force of the game is its line up of scenarios to play through. Unlike other games of this caliber like Age of Empires, Revolution does not have a story mode. Instead you have a sandbox open play mode, a mode to play preset scenarios... and there used to be a map of the week mode... years ago when this was new, forget about this. The meat and potatoes is freeplay and scenario play.

The first, and biggest fault I have with this game is a lacking online multiplayer mode. At best if there is multiplayer it might be ad hoc local, and good luck finding a second DS owner with a copy of this game. Then again I for one was never a big fan of the pre-3DS era DS wifi so go figure. Having a game like this with lacking wifi hence is no real surprise for me, disappointing yes but not surprising by a long shot.

The game itself is a pretty fun world builder overall. Build armies, build up cities one settler built or invaded or converted city at a time, and work your way to the future, doing research, fighting barbarians as well as rival nations... overall lots to do so that's good. However even with all that? Ultimately the game feels very repetative, and the AI seems unbalanced (too easy on the first difficulty, hard as heck on 2nd, and jumping leaps and bounds from there). Also, another fault of the AI, is a lack of unpredictability. Yes it is a straightforward strategy world builder, but even I enjoy a good twist in a game now and then. Having an AI that can think past simple aggression slash passive responses would have been great.

Long story short if you embrace it's limitations you'll find a pretty addictive fun game here... wish it had online multiplayer, yeah, and I hope they fix that if they port Civilization to the 3DS but... try it. Pretty fun for a DS world building strategy game. A 4 out of 5. Enjoy!