Then when I'm ready, I will tiptoe over his border and declare war. Now Genghis Khan wants to be friends - shall I shake his hand? I don't want to, he's a menace and I don't trust his moustache, but maybe a truce will do for now. Or how about science? Maybe one day I will take the Aztecs into space.
Next, what kind of civilization would I like to pursue? Is military muscle the focus of my research, or do I want to wow my people with cultural wonders instead? Decisions, decisions. Would I like to put down roots here, next to a beautifully unspoilt river and rich grassland, or there, next to a mountain range glittering with riches? Then, where would I like to create my empire? A bewitching question. I can write my own history, I can cheat time and have the ancient Romans take on Queen Elizabeth. Would I like to be Cleopatra or Gandhi, Lincoln or Catherine the Great (while I'm on the subject: check out Helen Mirren's Catherine the Great on Amazon Video, it's good - saucy but good)? In this world, they all exist together. And it seemed like everything could be controlled by pressing A.įrom the moment I chose a character, I was smitten. It was bright and colourful, big and chunky. CivRev was friendly, it was warm - it came out in the summer and I remember it feeling a bit like summer. It managed to streamline something complex without sacrificing the essence of what it was. It was wonderful, CivRev, to use a bit of the old lingo. To make it work, Civilization, Firaxis would have to redesign it. A menu-heavy, micro-managey desktop game doesn't naturally translate to being played on a controller while slumped on a sofa a few feet away from a TV.
#PS3 CIVILIZATION REVOLUTION 2 PC#
PC players and console players like slightly different things. And it was with this spirit someone at Firaxis made a wonderful suggestion: What if now was the time to bring Civilization to consoles? I suppose it was to do with games going online into a bold new frontier. It was the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 generation and for some reason it felt like a new age. And there was something in the air back then. Had I known I actually would be spending all day in my pyjamas in 2020, I might not have minded, but this was 2008. I wanted to spend all day in my pyjamas playing conqueror. I'd hear them talk about spending whole days or weekends engrossed in it, and how they wanted cultural victories by building great wonders for their people, about how they wanted to shape their worlds. I used to be so jealous of people who played Civilization.