Sid Meier’s Civilization Revolution

Nintendo DS

Firaxis

2008

If some strange set of unlikely circumstances created a scenario in which I could only play a single video game for the rest of my days, and for some reason we will not be exploring, it would be a game of my choosing, well, the game that would be chosen might feature fewer giraffes of the spatial variety than longtime readers of this feature might suspect. The game that I would pick in this highly farfetched situation is Civilization IV, but really any version of Civ would probably be fine in this strange-but-ill-defined scenario.

I love Civ very much, but it scares me. Civ is not like other games. Playing Civ is like being in a relationship with Robocop. It is kind of amazing, but probably not very healthy.

Forget World of Warcraft, if you want a game to drain all all of your free time, you want Civilization. Unlike WOW, or its MMO ilk, Civ is actually a good game. An amazing game. It is a game that grabs hold of you and makes you say “one more turn.” And then you say “no, this one more turn will be my last.” And then you say “one more turn.” And then you see the sun come up and realize you forgot to sleep. It is a game that I have on several occasions spent thirty-odd hours completing, and immediately upon completion, started a new game, muttering to myself “this time a cultural victory” or “this time let’s try spies.”

I have repeatedly had to quit Civ cold turkey for my own good. It had been over a year since I last allowed myself to play Civ when I found a used copy of the DS version of Civ Revolution for five dollars. How could I say no at that price?

Why did I think I could say yes?

Sid Meier’s Civilization Revolution on the DS is a Civ game that I can take anywhere. Who the hell thought that creating such a game was safe? I can play this game in bed. I can play it in the kitchen. I can play it in the bathroom. This is a version of Civ that in theory I never have to stop playing.

It just might kill me.