Civilization Revolution (Civ for consoles) demo today!

The Game Room
1

I hear the Xbox360 demo is up now, and the PS3 version should appear with their regular update later today. Impressions so far on the gaming sites have been overwhelmingly positive, so I’m looking forward to checking it out tonight.

Anyone else pumped?

2

Count me in. I’ve only ever tried CivIII on the PC and loved it. Looking forward to many a wasted hour on this one.

3

Due to ongoing PC gaming issues (WoW, for one) I’ve given up on playing games on the PC. Civ is one of the last genres of games that I can’t (yet) get on the console, so I’m pumped about the 360 version. I hope it won’t be tedious to use; I’m not sure how they’re going to mimic the mouse control. I look forward to the demo.

4

From what I hear, civ on the console has simplified mechanics and more arcade-style control. I’m excited to see how they made it work!

5

I always felt that Civ1 on the SNES was superior to the PC version, so my hopes are high for this one.

6

So, I downloaded the demo for Xbox yesterday and sat down to try it for a half hour or so before going to bed. Three hours later (damn you, Sid Meier), I had crushed the other four civs and achieved victory by domination. It’s definitely a bit on the simplified side, but still oh-so-addicting. If you’re a previous Civ fan, my guess is that, like me and the Penny Arcade guy, you’ll grumble about how it’s not the same as any of the other games as you keep taking

one

more

turn.

7

I’ve heard there’s going to be an edition for the DS. Is this true? Is it going to be gimped/less content than the full console versions ala Spore?

8

I played the 360 demo last night, twice, for the maximum allowable time (I got to 1250 both times, but then the demo stopped and reset to the main menu).

My impressions:

  • fantastic graphics (played on a huge screen). It was neat seeing the detail of cities that is so lost on my 21" PC monitor.
  • cute, funny animations (such as when one character knocks the tutorial guy out of the way), but I’m sure they’d get old after the first day.
  • very simplified game UI and (assumedly) mechanics. For example, you don’t have Workers.

To expound on the last point: I considered calling it Civilization for 15-year-olds, but I don’t think that’d be fair based solely on the demo and a half-hour game.

But make no mistake: this game is not the same as the PC game. If you go in expecting a console port of Civ IV (which I did), you’ll likely be disappointed, possibly even shocked. But in the same way that Civ IV is not Civ III (and I love both), perhaps this console version can make a place for itself despite its differences. On the surface, it doesn’t seem as deep (and goes heavily into “cuteness”), but there’s a chance that the full game will have additional depth and nuance.

9

Did they improve the graphics for the game?

Otherwise, your monitor should run at resolutions superior to HDTVs - or at least similar.

10

It’s not the resolution, it’s the size. I play my 360 on a 138 inch screen.