On top of this, when I installed it, it would play the intro movies, and then just stop responding. Not crash to desktop or anything, just stop responding on a black screen. So, I hit up Activision's website, only to find that I cannot find the game listed there anywhere. This made me more suspicious, since this was a 2002 game...new, but not so new that they wouldn't have anything up. Everywhere on that site I looked, nothing. So, off goes an e-mail to support. I note that Tech supports hours are (get this) Monday from 1pm to 4pm CST, and Tuesday-Thursday from 10am-4pm...must be nice. Well, I figure I'm not hearing from them for a while (this was Friday night), so I go off and install Mafia (which is excellent!). Late that night, on a lark, I try Revolution again...and for some reson, it now works fine. Go figure.
Now, I know this mail to Tech Support is still out there, but i figure I'll see what they say, it could be useful or important (yeah, right). Having DONE tech support before, and written to others, I know what to add, to help them troubleshoot the problem, and how to phrase things (for instance, telling them 'the game doesn't work' doesn't help much). I get a mail back this morning...and just lost it. First off, they give me a link to where to find the support for the game (which after looking at it, was a page I checked Friday, and it wasn't there before...someone put the smackdown on the webmaster, I guess). Then, after I mentioned in my original mail that I had checked my video and sound drivers to make sure they were updated before writing them, their whole advice to me was "Are you sure you checked your drivers? Maybe you should turn down your hardware acceleration." Thanks for the cookie, Dad.
It doesn't really matter, though, since I sold the game back to the store along with some other old games as used. Damn thing was boring me to tears. There were other factors that made the game crappy. For instance, the arbitrary assigning and removal of weapons, all with no note...plenty of times I discovered that I suddenly had another weapon that I had no knowledge of, and which had never been mentioned in any way. Or the fact that, with no manual, I could never tell what anything I WAS picking up was, or how it worked. You have some sort of PDA that gets you messages, but no where in the controls is listed this little thing...I went through an hour and a half of game before finally accidently hitting the key that brings it up...which fixed the weird blinking red cursor on the screen that told me nothing, but was annoying. You get only the barest of tenuous threads of ideas as to what you are supposed to be doing at any given point...assuming you care why you suddenly have a laser sniper rifle and are being told to hunt down and kill all the chameleons in the diorama (actual mission).
So, fuck it, I'm rid of it. Bought "Trailer Park Tycoon" instead, and it's a laugh riot.