Revival 2 -> for gamers !!

By Koushik Saha on 28.3.08

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Revival for PDA and Smartphones is a new turn-based military strategy game in the vein of Civilization, the now legendary game for desktop PC. Developed by HeroCraft, Revival is set to offer gamers many hours (or days) of both adventure and fun.

Those familiar with strategy games probably won't find Revival too difficult to understand, but I'm not sure about those not accustomed to strategy scenarios. Anyway, once you get used to Revival's interface, everything should go much easier. Which doesn’t mean you’ll easily win the battles with the enemy clans, but only that you will "move" inside the game more naturally. To help you do that, the game has a comprehensive tutorial that I advise you to check.

As any professionally-made game, Revival comes with support for several other
languages besides English, including Deutsch (German), Italian, Spanish and Russian.

Playing mode

Revival comes with three playing modes: "Easy", "Not that easy" and simply "Not easy" (which I obviously don’t recommend for those playing for the first time), and you can play in Single mode or start a Campaign.

In the Single player mode you can choose to fight against a variable number of enemy clans (from two to six), and you have no less than seven planets to play on: Rainbow, Hyperborea, Ocean, Death Zone, Godsend, Sunbay and Mountain. Well, they’re not as different from each other as I’ve expected, but still, they are not similar.
Theoretically, winning in the Single player mode is simple: gather resources, research new technologies, advance to new eras and make better units, then kill all your enemies; or, if you reach the ultimate era of technological progress, built a Teleport and the game will be won. Practically, the easiness in winning depends upon your skills – and apparently mine have proved to be quite shameful :)

The game's graphics are not among its highlights, but they're decent and do not affect negatively the playing process. Also, the music and sounds are pretty nice, and their settings can be changed according to your preferences.

If you play Revival from a Pocket PC (which I did while reviewing), any unit can be controlled either by the navigation keys or by stylus, depending on how you will find it easier.

The gold is mine in the mine

For the beginning, in both Single player mode and in the Campaign, you can get resources just by walking around with your most valuable but at the same time weaker unit: the Emissary of the Great Clans. You can even go in circles over a restrained full-of-resources area and your "stocks" will constantly grow. The Emissary won’t get dizzy even if you do this for an unlimited time. Scout’s honor.

Of course, for getting bigger amounts of gold and minerals, you will have to train workers. Workers who follow a simple but useful life philosophy based on their "The gold is mine in the mine" song (there’s actually no song with this title, not in Revival and nor in reality, but this is one of the many funny references found throughout the game). One thing to do before setting a mine: check the terrain info, to make sure there are actually resources to mine for over there.

After advancing with the game, you will get to train many new units, starting with immigrants (which are important because they help you build new cities), archers and knights, and finishing with tanks and robots.

Execute them

When reaching a high number of soldiers and workers, if you don’t want to control a unit anymore, you simply put it on "Defend" mode, and it will stay in the same place until you move it again (or until it’s discovered and killed by the enemies).

If you don’t want to own a building anymore, you can destroy it. Also, you can execute any of your units (except the Emissary). The main reason why one would want to take these radical actions is the fact that some resources will be given after the selected unit dies or the selected building collapses.

A good advice is to make sure you always keep some soldiers in all of your cities garrisons, to prevent foes from conquering them. Also, never ever go into the enemy territory with the Emissary of the Great Clans. He’s not at all prepared for any kind of combat engagement and he’ll quickly die if any of the enemy units attacks him. His death means the game is over, which you surely don't want to happen.

With the power of non-logics, you win

Revival also has some negative aspects. For example, sometimes the fights are illogically won, as weaker units can kill stronger ones. Moreover, you can’t build two buildings at the same time in the same town, which will only delay your plans to advance and get better units. Another thing I found to be not too nice is that the game doesn’t work in landscape mode, but this is actually not such a big deal.

Conclusion

Although it can be annoying at times, Revival is a pretty good game that can become addictive if you generally like turn-based military strategy adventures. Besides the game's resemblance with Civilization, I also found similarities with the Age of Empires series as well as with Heroes of Might and Magic. Therefore, those who enjoyed (or still enjoy) these titles will most probably enjoy Revival too. I know I did.

Price and demo version

Revival can be bought at prices between $9.99 and $24.99 (depending on the platform you get it for). Demo versions of the game can be downloaded from the following links:

* Pocket PC
* Smartphone
* Palm OS
* Symbian S60
* Symbian S60 3rd Edition
* Symbian UIQ
* Symbian UIQ3

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