Once the sole territory of the PC gamer, real-time strategy and resource management games seem to be appearing more and more on consoles these days; Command and Conquer immediately springs to mind but here comes an iconic name of the genre; Sid Meier’s Civilization Revolution. Past efforts at porting RTS to consoles to be played with a joypad have met with extremely mixed results, but thankfully Civ Rev really has has been designed for the consoles from the ground up, and it shows – this game is just so darned playable.

The object of the game is fairly simple; to build a world-dominating civilization. You can play the main single player campaign game, scenarios or online multiplayer. There’s also an option to download new scenarios. Scenarios decide which civilization you play as, but in the main game there are 16 civilizations to choose from, each having their own strengths and weaknesses; the Roman empire will build impressive road networks easily and cheaply, Germany has experienced and effective warriors, the Mongolians can join forces with Barbarian villagers, and African warriors can travel larger distances per turn. These characteristics give each scenario lots of different possibilities and each new game an entirely different feel. The tactical options aren't exactly myriad, but you can turn up to three units into one larger (and thus more powerful) army and destroy your enemies more easily. When your army wins enough battles they will become veterans, and then later elites. You can then choose from a list of powerful upgrades that will give elite units even more strength to dominate even more easily in battles!

Graphically this Sid’s Civ Rev is an interesting one. We were lucky enough to test both PS3 and 360 versions and they’re virtually identical; the style appeals to some people and others are turned off by its colourful, cartoony caricatures. Personally I like it, and the animation and detail of each character are excellent, despite the cities being rather out of scale and crowded. There’s no in-game music (Civilization veterans might agree this is a good thing), instead you have the moody noises of the cities and the occasional mutterings of the in-game characters.

I must admit that despite playing a lot in the past, recently RTS just haven’t ‘done it for me’, PC RTS come with huge manuals or PDFs and the menus are often incomprehensibly overcomplicated requiring you to learn and identify 50 different icons before you can so much as move a soldier or build a city. Sid Meier's Civilization Revolution has no such pitfalls, it plays a fine game, a fun game, and may well convert RTS-curious to the genre. For console gamers who’ve been waiting for this, it’ll surely keep you coming back and back again for more megapower struggles.