Revival 2

Revival 2 – Be a God and watch your civilisation grow...

It’s not every day that you get to play a game which is both challenging, rewarding and well humoured (trust me – I’ve reviewed quite a few games). The funny thing is, the last time I found a game which had a good amount of all three of these crucial elements was in the initial instalment of Revival. So it’s fantastic to see that Revival 2 is exactly what it should be and picks up where the last one left off.

In truth the game doesn’t quite pick up where the last one left off, in honesty, it looks and feels much like the earlier game the main difference is that there’s over 2000 maps to explore and conquer and nearly as many units and virtually limitless number of towns to start up and command within each one.

So if this game’s pretty much the same as the last one, what’s the point of upgrading to this? Well, apart from it being utterly brilliant and vast, this game is both complex and totally enthralling in equal measures.

As in the predecessor, you are a virtual God where you must create a town and make it grow. You can build more than one town through your immigrant units. To do so, simply move them around the screen until you find a place you like the look of and get settling! There’s only one restriction, you can’t build your towns too close to one another but this does develop the tactics required to play the game.

As you’d imagine your town itself grows through the buildings you decide to build within it. Schools, markets, farms and pharmacies all make an appearance in this game, and most importantly, each building provides special abilities to strengthen your civilisation. For example, researching new buildings and units required to build them. The units themselves progress as your civilisation develops – meaning you must race to develop faster than your opponents to overcome them.

A fascinating element that’s been introduced to this game also includes the option to form alliances, trade technology advances and be neutral with other clans. These elements all add to the challenge of the game, but also helps to give you even more ways to win, i.e. rather than brute force, you can win through more or less diplomatic means.

Battles are turn based and the units have limited movement which relies on the terrain conditions. As you would expect, in most instances the superior unit tends to triumph over the lesser units – but not always! This is partially down to the randomness within the game and also down to tactics (by setting the unit to a defensive stance it increases its strength by 10%).

Overall this game provides an experience which would normally be found on PC’s in the form of Civilisation or other such games. The controls are simple but also can work against you through accidentally tapping the wrong key – meaning you could attack or weaken your lines by being rash.  Otherwise this game’s pretty flawless in every way.

Rating 92%

Positives

Utterly brilliant and complex

Very enjoyable

Virtually limitless in possibilities and outcome

Negatives

A little restricted through its movements

No end turn option, meaning you have to waste moves to cycle through

The game’s very long and if you forget where you saved it, you could start on the back foot

Not able to play straight away – you’ll need to go through the tutorials