A Gaming Diary
Posts tagged civilization
Ten Best iPhone Games, November 2009
Nov 23rd
I’m often asked for iPhone game recommendations, so I’ve decided to post my list of the ten best games available for the platform. The plan is to post a list every few weeks, so please click the “top ten lists” label below to make sure you’re looking at the latest version if you’ve come to this post through a search engine. This list is in alphabetical order and consists of my own personal choice of games, based purely on how much I enjoy them.
33rd Division
A line-drawing game in the tradition of Flight Control and Harbor Master, but with a stealthy twist. Your job is direct soldiers to safe spots on the map, but without them being seen by the enemies. You can’t just draw a path, but must adjust it as the enemies patrol and lie down to stay out of sight. It’s tough, rewarding and incredibly exciting, distilling the essence of stealth into a fast-paced arcade rush.
Call of Duty: World At War: Zombies
A direct port of the Zombies game mode from World At War on the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3, CoD: Zombies really shouldn’t work. A game designed for high-definition hardware and a fully-featured controller – on the iPhone? Incredibly, it’s a total success. There are three different control schemes, all of which work well. The graphics are astounding, with the zombie animations especially noteworthy. And the wave-based survival gameplay simply never gets old. Even without considering the online cooperative multiplayer, this is one of the ten best games on the iPhone. At the time of writing only one map is available, as more are added this game will only get better.
Canabalt
Superb conversion of the web-based Flash game, Canabalt is a pure rush, controlled simply by tapping the screen when you want to jump. It’s wonderfully presented, perfectly simple and hugely addictive, with the randomly-generated levels meaning you can never be sure quite what’s ahead.
Civilization Revolution
Civilization Revolution was a great game on the Xbox 360. The core of the game was the same in the DS conversion, but an awkward interface made it difficult to enjoy. The iPhone version of the game, though, is a triumph. It may not be as pretty as the 360 version or have the AI tweaks that top players want, but it’s much easier to control than the DS version. It’s more of a game than the the more simulation based PC Civilization games, but that doesn’t stop it being a great way to build an empire.
Doom Classic
It may seem to be overkill to have two first-person shooters in this list when no tower defence or racing games have made the cut, but it’s not my fault that both CoD: Zombies and Doom Classic are deserving of a place in this list. Arguably the best game ever made, Doom has never really translated well to handheld consoles due to control difficulties. The iPhone version, however, controls beautifully and makes this the third-best version of this classic game (after the PC and Xbox 360 versions). The level design, weapons and enemies are still as wonderful as ever. If you’ve ever loved Doom, this is the version to carry around in your pocket. If you’ve never played, now’s the time to start.
iDrop Dead: Flower Edition
A physics-based puzzler where your job is to inflict as much damage as possible to cute cartoon characters. Tear their limbs off, expose their skulls and blow them up. This is a game, though, not an animated joke and the level goals are well-judged and careful consideration and well-timed flicking is needed to get them all. Forget Ragdoll Blaster and Max Injury, iDrop Dead is the pinnacle of the ragdoll genre and the Flower Edition contains the most content and is well worth paying for over the free versions.
Minigore
There are a lot twin-stick shooters on the App Store, but Minigore is the best. It may not have the RPG-like aspects of Alive-4-ever or the maze-like levels of Against The Fire, but it surpasses all other examples of the genre in pure frantic shooting fun. It’s fast, furious, relentless and tuned to perfection.
Orbital
Fantastic game that tests your aim and your brain. The mechanics are hard to explain, but obvious when you play. It’s a brutally hard game, but never unfair. Like many great games, you may develop a love-hate relationship with it – but you’ll keep going back.
Soosiz
The sound-bite description is Mario Galaxy in 2D, but with its cute visuals and small, but increasingly challenging, levels Soosiz soon leaves its inspiration behind and proves itself to be its own master. It controls perfectly, features a surprising amount of variety and has a enough levels to keep you going for a long, long time. It’s a joyous, bouncy experience, reminiscent of the best 16-bit platformers while being completely modern.
Str8ts
Sometimes you need to kick back and feed your brain, not your reactions, and there are a number of grid-based number puzzles for such occasions. There’s Sudoku, obviously, and KenKen, but the best of them is Str8ts. It’s impossible to say why, but Str8ts is simply the most satisfying puzzle game there is. It’s always logical and if you’re stuck, it’s only ever because you’ve missed something. The ratio between baffled staring and eureka moments is just right and when things flow, it’s glorious.
Civilization Revolution (iPhone)
Aug 14th
Did get to play much last night, because I was off in Chelmsford going to see my brand new, er, second cousin twice removed. Very cute baby; she fell asleep on me. Here’s a picture of her being grumpy with my wife.
Anyway, I did play some Civ Rev at lunchtime yesterday, then in bed last night before falling asleep. I’m the Mongols again. I love that barbarian villages join you as cities. It’s a great power. I never seem to have enough money to build roads until late in the game, but never mind.
The game started with an early war with the Greeks, but they asked for peace when I took their capital, Athens. Now they’re a happy little (single) city state nestled in the folds of my expanding empire. Then the Russians and Spanish both got annoyed with me and I went to war with, well, maybe both of them, though I’ve only fought the Spanish so far. I think I might be at war with Russia, too, but I get Catherine and Isabella mixed up when I click quickly through demands. The fight with Spain, though, has been going on for centuries. I’ve taken a few of their cities, but the Spanish are holding on well in the east. I don’t have money to build roads and my eastern cities aren’t very productive, so sending units to the front lines takes ages.
However, deep in the heart of my empire, scientific research is flourishing, so I may go for the technological victory again.
Also, here’s a tip that some players don’t seem to have worked out. I’m not very good at explaining things, but I’ll give it a go.
To move units a long way, you can click across the map. See the image there? There’s a confirmation asking whether that’s the destination you want to move to. If you want to move somewhere, say, to the south of that point, don’t click the tick or cross, just click on the map to the south. The destination marker will move to that point and the map will scroll so that it’s in the centre of the screen, so you can then click even further south. By “hopping” across the map like this, you can give units orders to move a long way and then leave them to it over multiple turns.
Did that make sense?
Civilization Revolution (iPhone)
Aug 12th
Finished off my game at lunchtime.
I did go for the technological victory in the end, but once I’d built and launched my spacecraft I had a few years until it reached Alpha Centauri.
Well, the Indians had been annoying me all game. I’d given them peace every time they asked, but during various wars they’d captured a couple of my outlying cities. I hadn’t been too bothered, but it still hurt, you know? (The fact that I’d stolen them from the Indians using culture in the first place isn’t the point – they were mine!)
If you look at the map, I’m the main empire filling most of the screen. The British are below me, the Egyptians are the yellow empire to the west and the Indians are up in the north-west. By this point in the game, they couldn’t attack me. They couldn’t get to me via land and my advanced ships were blocking the sea channel between us.
However, despite not doing anything about it, they were at war with me and every few turns they’d demand some technology in return for peace – demands that I refused.
So, once my spacecraft had launched, I didn’t have to worry any more, nor did I have any goals to work toward. It was time to make the Indians pay for being so very, very annoying. First off, I attempted to nuke Calcutta. Unfortunately, even though I was at war with the Indians, the stupid Congress refused to sanction my decision. So it was time to get rid of my democracy and become a republic. Once that was done, the nuke was launched and Calcutta disappeared from the map.
Then the waves of bombers went in. And then the ground troops. I was just advancing on one of the Indian cities when my spacecraft reached Alpha Centauri and the game ended. It was actually very annoying. I’d almost forgotten about it and was very much enjoying finally going after the Indians
Ah well, at least I won.
Civilization Revolution (iPhone)
Aug 12th
I love Civilization, always have. I’ve been playing it off and on for fifteen years or so.
This doesn’t mean I’m any good at it.
I’m not.
I never make any long term plans. I build whatever I feel like at the time, research technologies more or less at random (unless I actually have a clear goal in mind, which only happens if I start on a small island, or whatever), let cities decide which squares to use and generally just bumble about. My only real goal in any game is to try and get the borders of all my cities to touch so I can have a unified country.
I generally, therefore, play on the easy settings. I’m not above playing on the very easiest setting, just so I can do whatever I want without worrying. At the moment, though, I’m playing on one level above that, on Warlord. I’m Genghis Khan this time around, which means I should be running around on horseback kicking people in the teeth. (Historians: please check.) Instead the Romans have defended their cities like crazy, stopping my expansion and everybody but them keeps declaring war on me. I’m not in any danger – the odd enemy unit that wanders over to my little empire doesn’t live long – but I haven’t got the same free reign that I have on the easiest difficulty level.
I’ve pretty much decided not to bother going for a domination victory. I even switched to democracy, which means you can’t declare war on people. I’m leading the tech race at the moment, so I might go to space.
Anyway, I’ve been thinking back to the Civ game that I played on my last mobile phone, Civilization 3. That had no diplomacy, no naval units, not much of anything. (You can read a few brief impressions by clicking the “civilization” label at the bottom of this post and scrolling down.) That was rather what you expected from mobile games back then. Now, one phone later, we have this. Amazing.
Civilization Revolution (iPhone)
Aug 11th
What a surprise!
I had no idea this was going to be released on the iPhone and when I saw the price – £2.99, though it’ll be going up to £5.99 in the next day or so – I assumed it must be some mini game using the name, not the full thing. But no, this is the same game as the other versions, just on the iPhone.
So how does it hold up? Very, very well. The interface on the 360 version is better, but the iPhone version is much better than the DS version. It’s easier to control and looks a whole lot nicer.
The core game itself is the same across all formats, so you’re getting the full single-player Civilization Revolution experience on your iPhone. This may be a bad thing in terms of productivity, relationships and nutrition, because Civilization Revolution is a brilliant, brilliant game.
The only reason not to buy this right now is that there are reports of it playing poorly on pre-3GS devices. Though many people say their old iPhones and iPods handle it fine. There’s a very generous Lite version available, so if you’re worried go and download that now. If you’ve got a 3GS, skip the Lite and buy the full version. Just do it.
Civilization Revolution (DS)
Apr 25th
Being on holiday means I managed to play an entire game in one sitting yesterday morning. Only on Chieftan, but I rather like the stress-free life of an all-powerful leader. I was the Russians and won a cultural difficulty. I kept democracy from early in the game, only fighting when other civs declared war on me. It’s growing on me quite a lot, this game.
Civilization Revolution (DS)
Apr 20th
Finished off the game I was playing. It was only on Chieftan, so after a while I just decided to get a domination victory and proceeded to wipe everyone else off the map with ease. It’s awkward to control and I find it impossible to keep a mental map of what exactly the world looks like, but it’s certainly more playable than I thought.
Civilization Revolution (DS)
Apr 19th
I played this when I got it at launch, but didn’t get on with it at all, due mainly to an interface I could just not get my head around.
I thought I’d try it again, though, just in case I’d been wrong. I think I’ve come to terms with the interface now – I’m using the buttons as much as possible now – but I’m still not convinced. You just can’t see much of the map at a time and the units are hard to tell apart.
Still, impressions are better than they were first time I tried, so there’s definitely hope.
Civilization Revolution (360)
Jun 29th
Hooray! Third time lucky on King difficulty!
I managed to get an Economic victory as the Zulu, three turns before Japan’s space ship was due to reach Alpha Centauri. I was completely surrounded and down to only two cities, but I managed to hold on for the win. Epic stuff.
Civilization Revolution (360)
Jun 29th
Upped the difficulty to King. Ouch. The French and I fought each other for millennia, with no real advantage on either side and then the Egyptians launched a spaceship and won.
