Civilization Revolution Comes to the iPhone

When it launched last year, I was quick to download and play Civilization Revolution on the Xbox 360. Civilization has always been a favorite series of mine, and it was no surprise that Civilization Revolution quickly became one of my favorite games to play. A simplified and stripped-down version of the Civilization franchise, Civilization Revolution is best described as a gorgeous, easy-to-understand distillation of the best elements of the Civ franchise.

Naturally, then, when I saw that Civilization Revolution, or CivRev, was launched for the iPhone I was ecstatic. I suppose that I'm a bit late to the party, but an August 7th interview on Gamasutra is worth reading if you are at all interested in the game. It appears to be quite the value, as the application is priced at $10 (until the end of the day, you can snag it for $5), but contains all of the game code from the PS3, DS, and Xbox 360 versions of the game.

Civilization Revolution features 16 different civilizations, a number of different starting scenarios, and a whole lot of replayability. While I don't know that they will carry over the "scenario of the week" to the iPhone, I tend to play a game or two of CivRev a week (usually I will at least find time for the scenario of the week).

In my opinion, CivRev is, in a word, elegant. Among other things, the economy is wonderfully simple, the unit tree is quick to grasp, the graphics are great, and the gameplay is fast, making this perhaps the best entry in the Civilization franchise. While there is something to be said for the soup to nuts designs of previous Civilization entries, I really enjoyed this game's emphasis on the different countries (the starting techs, unique units, and special attributes are much more relevant than in previous games), and fast paced play of CivRev. If you've been holding off purchasing the game for some time, or don't have a current-gen console, the iPhone/iPod Touch version of Civilization Revolution is definitely something worth checking out.

If for some reason I find out I'm going to be travelling a lot during the next few months, I'll probably buy the game for the iTouch, but if you end up buying the game, definitely leave your thoughts in this post's comments thread.