Game developer legend Sid Meier has mostly concentrated his effort on PCs but in 2008 he and his team at Firaxis will bring his most famous game creation, the Civilization turn based strategy game series, to console with Civilization: Revolution which is being developed from the ground up for consoles. At E3 last week, we got a chance to see a quick live game demo of the title which will be published by 2K Games.

The demo showed us that Meier had not forgotten the elements that PC players have enjoyed about the Civilization series. The turn based elements are still there as are picking one of the 16 different civilizations that you can play in the game. Historical figures such as Cleopatra and Napoleon are are also a part of the new game. However, the game's visuals have definitely gotten a facelift. The visuals, while still staying with the series's somewhat cartoony tone, are much more enhanced as you get to see unit more up close than you have encountered in the PC games. The title's 3D games even have an in-game physics engine which means that animations in battles should look different every time you play it.

Our E3 demo showed off some aspects of Civilization: Revolution's battles as we saw some Roman soldier' attack an enemy base. The demo showed some aspects of the unit's upgradablity as they were changed to "ninja Romans" with better infiltration. While battles are still turn based they can be pretty intense. We saw a battle from a more advanced civilization that resulted in the firing of an ICBM to nuke the base to kingdom come. One ending for the game is getting on board your space shuttle to board your interstellar craft for Alpha Centauri. When asked if a console game based on that classic strategy game Alpha Centauri might be a follow up to this title we were told simply that it would be an interesting way to go.

Online multiplayer plans for the game are still being worked on but there will be support for one-on-one, two-on-two and four player free-for all matches. New downloadable content for the game is planned as well; indeed it was mentioned in our demo that Firaxis was thinking about creating a "game of the week" download where players can post their score online and compare them to other players.

The demo we got to to see was being run on an Xbox 360 but a PS3 version is in the works as well and both games are due for release this spring (a DS version, which will certainly look and play different than the game we saw, will also be released this spring). Firaxis isn't forgetting the Wii; that version will be released in the fall of 2008. We hope to have more info on Civilization: Revolution in the months leading to its release.

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