History revisited

by ERIK LEIJON

There’s something about the stability of history I always found appealing. Go ahead and deconstruct the significance of every bullet fired and treatise signed like some Derrida-asshat, but when it comes to cold hard facts: we know the Berlin Wall fell, Napoleon hit ’em with a whiff of grapeshot, Newton stared more intently at an apple falling than anyone before him, and Archimedes liked baths.

That being said, historians get a kick out of theoretical situations, such as asking what might have happened if the Nazis had won, or if that lightning bolt had missed Martin Luther. Civilization Revolution (X360, PS3/2K Games, Firaxis) is like the NCAA tournament of history—tossing every great society onto one island and seeing who wins the epochal throw-down.

DIVIDE AND CONQUER:
Civilization Revolution

Civ Rev answers those impossible questions, like if Napoleon Bonaparte could beat Abraham Lincoln in a fight. Based loosely on the famous Sid Meier series, Revolution earns its moniker by being the first Civilization to be developed specifically for consoles. Cramming thousands of years of human cultural and technological revolution into one controller might seem like a mystery only Leonardo Da Vinci could solve, but the enlightened minds at Firaxis have brought us the Magna Carta of game design.

A standard game begins on a near empty island, where the player controls one of 16 great civilizations. The victor will be the one who grows their tiny agrarian city into a modern day empire rich in arts, culture, manpower and weaponry. Using a rudimentary diplomacy system, one can enter agreements with neighbouring societies, only to beat them into subjugation.

Civ Rev operates as a turn-based strategy where fights occur automatically and building your cities is done through menu screens. With the absence of a PC mouse, the game itself takes the reigns in assigning a logical order in which you can move your troops or order construction projects. The player is still in control at all times, but there’s always an invisible hand guiding your vastly expanding kingdom.

Things get extremely hectic after the first conquering, so learning to move in harmony with the smart helper AI will allow you to lead in war and diplomacy, instead of micromanaging like Spain’s Phillip II.

The simplified controls and cartoonish graphics in no way imply this is a dumbed down Civilization. By streamlining some of the more tedious population-growing and food-producing portions, more time can be spent building massive universities and exploring the vast seas.

As great as the scenario modes are, it’s just enjoyable to play a game that messes with history so liberally. Your cities can be visited by “great people,” who are real historical figures providing their services. How cool is it to say Vasco de Gama or Fyodor Dostoevsky visited your capital? The game may be the accumulation of thousands of years of history, but it’s one of the best in 2008.

Five-ring circus

I’m not ready to give up on the traditional button-tapping control scheme used in Beijing 2008 (Multi/Sega, Eurocom), but most of the events are about as pleasant as a smog-filled stroll in the People’s capital. The running and swimming races are impossible against the computer AI unless steroid abuse can result in superhuman finger speed. There are also no indicators to tell you when the starter pistol is about to fire, meaning the AI will always get a clean start while you stumble out of the gate.

I did like the less physically demanding diving and shot-putting events, but even the Xinhua news agency would hold off on the gold medal review.