Revival Deluxe

Who out there knows a thing or two about the game Civilisation? Well, if you do then you’ll be pretty much up to speed with Revival Deluxe.

The game starts, as all epic games should, with a rather long tale about the way life went in the year 2057 and indeed the future of mankind afterwards. I’ll spare you the whole story but in brief, man made sub-light speed engine which made space travel possible, however in many parts of the galaxy that were colonised they chose to revert to a more feudal way of life as travel would still take ages for them to sustain technology. In the end, seven cultures kept the technological advances and took it upon themselves to lead the other tribes under their respective banner.

OK, you still awake? Phew! So basically it becomes a battle to gain the most land and defend whatever you take from others who’d like it for themselves. You have one explorer who is vital to your survival – should he die, it’s game over!

So once you’ve been through the intro you have three choices, the tutorial, a single game or campaign mode. For everyone, despite your experience in other similar games, it’s worthwhile getting yourself familiar with this through the tutorial mode. You will of course be given some nice tricks of the trade and some more obvious advice, but bear with it – you’ll be thankful for the nuggets of information for when you play the game in full.

As with Civilisation, this is a turn based game which is very engaging and totally addictive if you can get your head around the subtleties of the game. As with most strategy games, it pays to get the balance right between attacking and defending as well as constantly developing your towns which you discover to keep churning out workers who can till the land and improve your technology provided by the village and therefore help provide better units to use to attack/defend to succeed in the game.

As with any beginning for a game like this, the secret’s in the start. Should you get the right balance in the beginning, such as sourcing minerals and gold, you’ll prosper and have the advantage over other civilisations.

I found that the AI was a little tame and not quite as advanced as it could be, however this was a good thing as I didn’t want to lose within the first 10 minutes. This being said, I do like to succeed from a challenge rather than just knowing that the opponents aren’t too bright.

In total you have nearly 50 missions in the campaign mode. Interestingly it’s not just about being the one with the bigger sword at the end of the day, but the one who can develop their technology the furthest, fastest! Indeed diplomacy is also a tactic well served to keep your friends and enemies close. Indeed it’s a space race and you’ll be rewarded for your patience in developing your civilisation into a tribe that Star Trek would be truly proud of!

Revival Deluxe offers the next step up from Settlers or Townsmen 6: Revolution in terms of gameplay and fun. It doesn’t quite have the same graphics on offer as Townsmen 6 but it’s still pretty good and the tactics and depth provided by the game is a fair compromise.

Rating 95%

Positives

Great in depth gameplay

Fun and challenging

Negatives

The waiting and turn based play can cause a lot of key presses

The controls would have been better if you could use the direction pad to do diagonal moves on the map view

The AI is a little tame and doesn’t offer much of a challenge