Reseñas recientes de Cracktus Jack

Starpoint Gemini is an open-world tactical space combat simulator. Emerging from a space-time stasis, you're a soldier trying to make your place in the Gemini System that has changed beyond recognition since its isolation at the end of the war you were originally part of.

Pros: The Gemini System is vast, with dozens of sectors, each with their own space stations, factions and secrets. You're allowed to roam freely, at your own risk, which is great for for anyone who like exploring. You get access to dozens of ships and hundreds of ship components as you rank up your status through experience and standing with the numerous factions. You can freelance your skills, board or capture other ships to upgrade your own.

Cons: You have little direct control over your actions, as you command a ship, not a craft. You ask it to fire on enemy ship, you don't actually get to aim and shoot. The universe is flat, you cannot maneuver over and under and beyond other ships, so you must circle around them in this 2D fashion, giving you little combat strategy. The game is far from polished and the graphics are showing their age. Voice acting is extremely amateurish with bad recording quality, speaking traditional technobabble in a failed attempt to give this sci-fi world credibility.

Verdict: ★★☆☆☆ - Forget it

I really can't recommend this game. It is sub-par on too many aspects and an overall disappointment. If this is really type of game you like, perhaps you'd be better off investing a few more bucks on the sequel, but I sure won`t.

—————————————————————————
This was just my opinion.

If you found this review helpful, please consider giving it a thumbs up, and feel free to check out more of my (purely opinionated) reviews.

Shadowrun Returns is a isometric tactical RPG. In a dystopian future, where dormant elf, orc and troll genes reemerged in the population, where immortal dragons run mega-corporations that control the world, mercenaries run the shadows to do everyone else’s dirty work with the use of guns, magic and technologies. They call themselves Shadowrunners. This review takes into account the free Dragonfall DLC released later after the game.

Pros: The first module, called Dead Man’s Switch, is a nice although straightforward introduction to players who aren’t familiar with the game and explores the Seattle setting. The second module, called Dragonfall, offers a lot more character development and additional flexibility and options to complete any given quest, all while exploring the anarchy-governed flux-state of Berlin. The game backgrounds are gorgeous hand-drawn stills, added with the techno-trance music gives the game an eerie atmosphere, each building and object seemingly having a story of its own to tell, while the music adjust to combat scenes before slowing down once you’re back from it. The game progression is straightforward, the skills are broken down into skill trees with a clear view of what you get from raising any attributes or skill. There is no set character class, although you have pre-generated archetypes you can start from.

Cons: The story is somewhat linear, most of all in Dead Man’s Switch, where choice will change the dialog but not the outcome of the story. General graphics aren’t on par with the AAA industry, so anyone looking for graphical realism will be sorely disappointed. There is no voice acting, so get ready to read a lot if you want to have any hopes of feeling involved in the story. The two modules which happen at the same time, aren’t related to each other, so there is no progression from one to the other, and are both somewhat quick to play through.

Verdict: ★★★☆☆ - It's up to you

Let’s judge the game for what it is: a crowdfunded indie game (the success story that put Kickstarter on the map for many people) meant to be used as an engine for the modding community, community that has been very active at creating new stories, new equipment, new world object for other modders, and is using the engine in new and creative ways. As you play, you can feel the richness of the game’s tabletop RPG heritage, and you just wish you could learn more about that world. It is fun, it is well worth the money and time, and it’s definitively a game I recommend!

—————————————————————————
This was just my opinion.

If you found this review helpful, please consider giving it a thumbs up, and feel free to check out more of my (purely opinionated) reviews.

...is a third-person beat’em up with stealth. With the violence of Gotham’s “Supervillains” more uncontrollable than ever, the new head of Arkham Asylum, Dr. Hugo Strange, has an entire section of Old Gotham closed off to lock criminals away and have them keep their violence to themselves, after which he confronts Bruce Wayne about being Batman, threatening to expose his secret if he digs too deep into the true goals behind Arkham City.

Happening after the events of Batman: Arkham Azylum, it is somewhat recommended to have played the first one and understand certain plot-specific points (such as the Joker's degenerative affliction or Quincy Sharp's implication with Arkham Asylum and Hugo Strange's work), but any eager Batman fans can jump in right here if they don't mind missing on it.

Typical modern brawler: the goal is to keep the momentum, jumping from one opponent to the other without ever slowing the pace, countering any attacks made on you, and combining your attacks with your various gadgets. Consecutive attacks result in more experience points, used to unlock special moves, additional gadgets and various upgrades. Gliding was enhanced, using momentum to take off or maintain flight over a longer distance.

A broad cast of characters will delight fans who want to see this franchise's signature gritty/dark adaptation of memorable villains from the comics or the Batman: Animated Series, although their actual implications vary from mere easter eggs to side quests or inevitable confrontation. The Catwoman DLC happens in parallel to the main story, giving a greater diversity to the gameplay, while the Harley Quinn’s Revenge featuring Tim Drake’s Robin is a nice followup to the main campaign.

Collectibles are around every nook and corner. There are character profiles, audio interviews, 3D models and others to find in Arkham City, Riddler trophies to really put to the test your mastery of the game controls, and many references to Batman lore to be found.

The map is nice enough size (considering there are no vehicles), tall buildings with snipers, patrol helicopters, secret areas, or places you can only enter after acquiring certain WayneTech upgrades that allow radio communication monitoring, hacking, and much more. Around every corner, there's someone crying for help while inmates beat him up, or thugs are chatting about the rivalry between their boss and other villains.

Combat is just as smooth and intuitive as ever. Sure, at low difficulty, you could probably single-button mash your way of some places. However, learning the combos and using the special moves you unlock makes the game much more enjoyable.

If you're hoping for a sprawling city, you'll be disappointed. There are very few buildings you can enter, and most enemies don't respawn. If you bother completing side objectives while playing the main quest, you'll find the city to quickly start feeling deserted as there is less and less left for you to do.

Replayability is pretty limited to trying a higher level of difficulty. The series of challenge battles are basically just waves and waves of goons to fight with no story, a poor substitute for more gameplay.

There is no day cycle, all the events are technically happening on the same night. Sure, the game says "X hours left before commencing Protocol 10" on a regular basis, but that's just based on your progression in the story. If there is 2 hours left and you spend 20 hours doing sidequests, there will still be 2 hours left until you resume the main storyline. This entirely strips the game of any sense of urgency.


The game is fun, Batman feels like a badass, the Arkham's aesthetics remain the perfect mixed breed between realism and cartoons.Unless Batman isn’t your thing at all, in which case you wouldn’t consider this game to begin with, there really isn’t any reason not to get Batman: Arkham City – Game of the Year Edition.

—————————————————————————
This was just my opinion.

If you found this review helpful, please consider giving it a thumbs up, and feel free to check out more of my (purely opinionated) reviews.

...is a medieval politics grand strategy game. Maneuver nobility relations as you seek to expand the power and prestige of your dynasty, generation after generation.

The goal of a game is to control a character of noble birth, and then his heir, and his heir after, building your dynasty through centuries. While you begin with a title and lands, anything from a modest Count with a King you owe your allegiance to, or perhaps you are a King with Dukes and Counts of your own you must maintain under your control. From that point on, the end goal is yours to determine.

Most of the game resembles a lot a text-based RPG, as you enact your character that has different social attributes that endear him to some people and makes enemies of others. You spend the lifespan of that character making decisions on both grand political schemes or trivial things of life that can influence your relation with other nobles or subjects, as well as your own family members. Upon this character's death, you take over his heir, and whatever titles, family and inheritance (and social attributes) he has.

Combat is straightforward. Upon having a casus belli (an excuse to go to war, whether legitimate or forged) and declaring war, you raise your levies of soldiers, the quantity and quality of which depends on what buildings you have in your lands' cities, and the influence you have over your own subjects who must contribute to your army with theirs. You get plenty of flexibility to split and reform battalions, assign commanders, and face enemy troops or siege enemy cities. War is a vehicule to suppress unruly subjects, force other nobles into concessions, or actually claim land as yours.

Where to begin? It's a huge world, thousands upon thousands of characters exist at any given time, each with their family members, subjects and enemies, lords and heirs. Europe, West Asia, North Africa, Middle East and India are in one huge map, broken down to every single city, barony, county, tribal land, sheikdom, to name a few.

Depending on your race, culture, religion and place and time in the world, the game mechanics governing your social hierarchy, your dynasty's honor and piety will work differently. All the political options, dialog and life choices, rules of law and inheritance, are very different for a Christian Duke from East Francia, a Norse Chief from Danemark, a Muslim Sheik from Arabia or a Buddhist Hindustani from Delhi. I cannot think of a game that offers such an unlimited experience of replayability!

As a fully open-ended game, you'll have just as much fun seeing generations in plotting, scheming, manipulating and conquering come to fruition, or fall flat on its head. Perhaps your general hired an assassin against you for sleeping with his wife. Perhaps you married your son to a Duchess so that your grandson won inherit her lands, but then died of smallpox, leaving you with your unpopular, hunchback, stuttering second son as your next heir. Perhaps your angered a pious rival that uses his influence with the Pope to have you excommunicated. Or, perhaps you crafted the perfectly balanced kingdom with respectful subjects, which then got trampled by an angry Mongol cavalry that's conquering everything in its path west.

Paradox of constantly updating this game with additional content. Over and over, they added additional mechanics, additional locations, additional game options, even additional timelines. Each time, the base game gets an update even if you don't have the DLC. Borders are adjusted to reflect historical facts, culture-specific character models, coat of arms, and music are added, even years after it's been released.

Crusader Kings II has a very high learning curve, and newcomers must be willing to put in hours of learning, trial and error, and tutorial reading to understand how every mechanic works. The ever-changing game mechanics introduced by the DLCs mean that only the hardcore players with hundreds upon hundreds of hours can hope to master the game. It takes a long time for it to pay off, so patience is a must.

Graphics are passable, barely enough to serve the game's purpose. However, to get appropriate character models and culture-appropriate skins and faces, you must purchase separate DLCs. If you got yourself the Sword of Islam pack to play the Crusades from the african side of the wars, DLCs are sold separately for the African Portraits Pack and the African Unit Pack, or pay a whooping premium for the DLC bundles.

Even at easier levels, difficulty remains high and players must be willing to go through constant frustrations as you are limited to decisions your character makes as a single person. This means there is no direct control over the outcome of battles, plots and events. The game can be slow at times, sometimes requiring months, years, even decades of in-game time to bring some plans completion.


This game isn't meant for everyone, as it requires patience and dedication. Once you passed that, it is an immensely rewarding, captivating, and addicting game. Give Cruisader Kings II's demo tutorial a try, see if you like what you see. And if you do, the full game will have you in for quite a treat!

—————————————————————————
This was just my opinion.

If you found this review helpful, please consider giving it a thumbs up, and feel free to check out more of my (purely opinionated) reviews.

...is a Sci-Fi Adventure RPG. As the Republic lies in shambles five years after the Jedi Civil War, a former Jedi who lost his connection to the force is pursued by a trio of dark Jedi masters who roam the galaxy, seeking its destruction.

Game mechanics are the same as Star Wars | Knights of the Old Republic, except you pick right away from one of three Jedi classes, and later upgrade to brand new Jedi Master classes. You then get experience points from battle and quests, level up your character and companions, add points to various attributes, picking skills, feats and Jedi Powers. Combat is turned-based, and attacking, dodging and damage points are determined by dice rolls and various bonuses from your gear.

The story throws you in a mining base without any idea of recent events or how you got there. As a brand new character, knowledge of the first game isn't required, and is actually barely complimentary to playing this one, save for a few easter eggs and name drops. Once again, dialog choices will determine your relationship with your crewmates and how much influence you'll have over them.

After completing the first two locations, the rest of the galaxy will open additional locations to explore in the order you'll want. Level design is a linear branching out, each location branches out into a couple of direction, allowing you to go back and forth, backtrack to earlier parts, and give enough freedom of movement as to not feel as restrictive. As you advanced further into the story, some location will unlock, others will cease to be available.

You play in a much grimmer adventure with many shades of gray. Aligning yourself with the light side of the force may cause death and suffering to others, while other times the dark side of the force will save innocent lives, and you get to see the consequences of your actions, forcing you into a moral struggle to determine the right thing to do. Your choices influence your entourage of companions, who will tend to lean in the direction you lean, your balance of the light and dark sides of the force will reflect upon them and their own connection to the force.

This time, you get to develop your companions a bit more. Not just in terms of a back story or side quest, but eventually taking them under your wing and choosing to train them as a new generation of Jedi based on your own light, dark or gray philosophy, the result of which you'll learn in the multiple endings the game has for you.

You get more equipment variety, including Jedi-specific armors (instead of being limited to cloth robes). In addition to being able to upgrade your pistols, melee weapons and suits with plug-in components, crafting has also been enhanced, adding among other things the ability to disassemble existing items into parts and chemicals, creating stimpaks, grenades and other items as needed.

Although the game got an upgrade to give it up-to-date resolution, the graphics are still outdated with 3D objects and character models being very rigid and polygony, while looping animations for poses and character interactions have had no improvement over the previous game. Cut scenes are no better either, and to an extent might as well have been done using the in-game engine.

While the game seems to avoid referencing too much of the previous game, it seems to expect you to have played it enough as your character creation starts right away as a Jedi class with Jedi Powers, forcing important decisions very early in game for new players to the franchise. The learning curve here almost requires you to go through the first game, even if it's barely plot-relevant when it comes to the story.

It's a known fact that the game has multiple bugs due to problems in the development, making the story somewhat hard to follow: A cut scene might pop in but the playthrough that lead to that scene was missing, or maybe you were in your ship flying to a destination and the game suddenly jump to your cockpit with your ship having landed on an unknown planet you’re unsure how you got there.


A much more layered story using the same game mechanics as the previous game, this is a win in my book! The bugs aren’t game breaking, easily fixed with cut content restored with the Restored Content Mod from the Steam Workshop. Of course, if you didn’t enjoy playing the first game, you'll probably feel the same about this one. Otherwise, I definitely recommend it!

—————————————————————————
This was just my opinion.

If you found this review helpful, please consider giving it a thumbs up, and feel free to check out more of my (purely opinionated) reviews.

...is a Sci-Fi Adventure RPG. Set 4,000 years before the Galactic Empire, you are a Republic Soldier stuck in a war against a newly formed Sith Empire led by former Jedi heroes, whose steps you retrace in an attempt to discover the source of their military power.

Game mechanics are from typical tabletop RPG systems. You pick a class (choice of three), you get experience points from battle and quests, level up your character and companions, add points to various attributes, pick skills and feats, as well as Jedi Power once you get to pick a Jedi class (choice of three) later in the game. Combat is turned-based, and attacking, dodging and damage points are determined by dice rolls (D4 = between 1 and 4, D6 = between 1 and 6, etc.) coupled with the bonuses and multipliers from your selected weapons and gear.

The story throws you in a ship under attack, where you determine your past history and purpose. Shortly after, you will get to explore a city planet, which later opens the galaxy to a few additional locations you'll be able to travel to. Branching storytelling is key to how your adventure will develop, as dialog choices will determine your relationship with your crewmates and how some events will carry out.

Level design is a linear branching out, whereas it isn't fully open world, but each location branches out into a couple of direction, allowing you to go back and forth, backtrack to earlier parts, and give enough freedom of movement as to not feel as restrictive. As you advance further into the story, some location will unlock, others will cease to be available.

Nice story that explores the ages before the modern Star Wars setting, back when the Republic was half its size and most of the Galaxy was yet to be mapped. You get exposed to a lot of lore from the Star Wars universe without being required to know much beforehand, which will please both hardcore and casual Star Wars fans. As you carve your own path to the light or dark side, you'll pick which companions to bring on your missions, which is also key to unlocking their own paths, even unlocking their own side quests.

You get a nice selection of equipment, allowing you to customize your play style with power-ups. Many laser pistols, melee weapons and suits can be upgraded by attaching plug-in components to them. Players familiar with the D20 dice roll system can see the whole mechanics, enabling them to optimize their stats (ex: D6 Damage + D4 damage + 2), while players that aren't can just look at the end result (ex: 4-12 Damage), it's up to you how far you want to take it.

Each location you can travel to is different: the music, the visuals, the creatures you fight, are all very distinct, and many have multiple levels that are unique as well: you will never mistake the treetops of Kashyyyk with its swampy floor, nor will you confuse Taris' Upper City with its Under City. Each location has its own merchant, its own Pazaak players, its own set of sidequests, making sure nothing feels too redundant. Yet, it all still feels like Star Wars, very recognizable in both visuals and sound effects.

This is where the game shows its age with old graphics and polygony objects and character. Animations are still and static, looping poses for characters standing around, or very basic animations with no actual lip sync during conversation. Cut scenes are very few, and while they have better animation, their low-resolution makes them worst on other levels.

Character creation is very limited: You can only pick a human and are limited to basic classes, which is odd, considering there are other classes you come across with your companions. You can only pick from a couple of pre-generated faces, which again is quite a contrast from today's games. And when you level up, you must make important decisions early regarding skills and feats with little to no explanation how it might screw you in the long run.

Because of the linear nature of the levels, you'll often find yourself having to travel from one end of the map to the other and back again, forcing you to back track constantly to complete quests. It wouldn't be so bad if there were random encounters along the way you could use to grind for experience points and loot, but there isn't: enemies and creatures are located at specific places, and don't respawn except for specific points in the story where they are supposed to.


If you’re not a fan of Star Wars, you probably won’t see the appeal of this 14+ years old game. For anyone else, though, the Knights of the Old Republic franchise is among the best games the original Star Wars Legends universe has to offer to any level of fans. I recommend it as it's definitely worth it!

—————————————————————————
This was just my opinion.

If you found this review helpful, please consider giving it a thumbs up, and feel free to check out more of my (purely opinionated) reviews.

...is a casual business simulator. From the post-console crash of the 80s to modern gaming scene, you run an indie game studio from your garage with the goal of becoming a world-renowned developer team.

To develop games, you must pick a genre (action, simulator, RPGs, etc.) and match it with an appropriate theme (aliens, sports, fantasy, etc.), after which you allocate the time you spend working on the game during its three phases. For each game you produce, rating and success are based on how well you matched genres and themes and console, and making sure development generates sufficient design and technology points for the picked genre. The quantity of points is determined by where you allocate your time during the three phases of development, and your own experience with the different phases' fields and the technology your game engine uses.

You start as a single person, working from your garage in the early 80s. As you start working on larger projects, you will move to a small office, and then a larger one, while growing your development team. Working on your game will randomly generate research points that you can then spend in training yourself and your team members into different specialties, or in the research of new themes or technologies (3D graphics, savegames, multiplayer, branching story, etc.) for your own game engines. Implementing new technologies require a minimum time allocation in the appropriate phase's fields, so you must pick and chose which technology will benefit the genre and theme of game you're working on.

There's an astonishingly large quantity of themes to choose from, which you combine with one (and later two) genre, determining console and eventually target audience, allowing almost limitless possibilities. Unlikely combos even get their time in the spotlight, as there will randomly be time-limited niche market trends you can exploit to boost sales, in addition to various marketing campaigns, convention booths, or developing sequels to popular previous games. Success doesn't just bring more money to develop more games, but also builds your reputation with a dedicated base of loyal fans that will enhance sales and hype.

As you develop more games, you can research your past games and learn from their success or failure, eventually recording what general combinations of genres, themes, target audiences, consoles, and development phase fields work best together. Because you only start with 4 themes out of dozens to be researched, you'll get plenty of replayability from attempting all the different combinations. These records can then be loaded into future playthroughs.

As the years go by, you're often informed on news of the video game market, events, speculations and new console release that parodies how events actually unfolded. Your knowledge of real-world events might just help you avoid the mistakes of real world companies (such as believing newspapers claiming the Gomodore64 will kill the PC market, or that the Vena DreamVast will topple all other consoles). This is a funny wink to "old school" gamers who've been playing games for the past 30+ years.

The game is very, very simplified. There is no clear competition, no way to determine how much you concentrate on tech use (besides selecting whether or not you use them at all). You will forever be limited to a small indie company, no way to grow into a larger company (the likes of which EA did, from a small indie studio to one of the largest publishers).

In the real world, gaming platforms and consoles were often built or killed by genre-defining console-exclusives, but you don't get to affect events in Game Dev Tycoon. You can release a the single biggest, most popular 10/10 game and nothing will topple the failure or retirement of a console at its scheduled time or in any way influence video game industry events.

While a multitude of indie studios have thrived on the development and specialization of specific genres, you are forced to alternate between multiple genres and themes, because using the same ones too often will quickly drop your ratings for being too redundant. Also, you will forever be measured on your best game to date, so as soon as you develop a game that skyrockets, you can expect low ratings for years to come unless you invest heavily in the training of your staff and the development of new technologies. And even then, you'll eventually cap when you reached the point where your staff is trained to maximum capacity and no new technologies are being released.


This is a fun and addictive game! Sure, there are games that dig in deeper into realism (such as GamersGoMakers), but if you just want a casual game you’ll play an hour or two (or more) at the time, give this one a try!

—————————————————————————
This was just my opinion.

If you found this review helpful, please consider giving it a thumbs up, and feel free to check out more of my (purely opinionated) reviews.

...is a 4x turn-based strategy game. Span your empire across the galaxy, traveling from one star system to another, encountering alien empires and competing for territory and dominance.

As a turn-based strategy, you play in turn with other players or AI factions. Unit movement is limited to an amount of tiles dictated by ship size and propulsion type, while construction of buildings and ships is limited by production capabilities and resource availability.

In a default game, you start on a single planet with basic propulsion and colonization technologies. You can travel from system to system via warp gates, eventually coming across other races. There is no goal, except expend and destroy other factions to be the sole ruler of the galaxy.

Combat can be automated, facing your fleet against an enemy's, or ran in tactical mode where you take give orders to move and fire to each of your ships in a turn-based fashion.

There's a lot of technologies to discover, uncovering multiple ship and base models, weapons and propulsion types, and various infrastructure to colonize planets and produce resources. While some technologies have multiple levels of research, some will uncover new research trees.

The huge quantity of technology to research allows for a lot of creativity for ship designs. Whether you need a scout ship, a transport, a battleship or a star base, you must design it from a large list of chassis sizes, weapons, propulsion, armor and other components. Once newer technology is available or a different strategy (and equipment type) is required against an opponent, you can quickly load older designs and update them.

There's a large selection of faction to choose from, each with their own perks and bonuses, some even have unique technology trees based on racial-specific attributes, such as psychic or crystalline to name a few. There are also neutral factions spanning single systems, adding more life to the galaxy without necessarily adding competitors.

AI behavior is determined by basic traits that are little more than flavortext with a mere light variation on aggressiveness and expansionism. When at war, the AI has no strategic thinking. It will not attempt to outmaneuver you in any way, simply sending fleets and individual ships, over and over, until the war ends or his units becomes needed against a closer enemy.

Tactical combat loses its fun quickly as larger fleet becomes unmanageable in tactical combat. And the more ships you have, the more you'll rely on sheer numbers to overpower enemy ships, replacing any semblance of strategy with the mere movement of one or a few large stacks of ships attacking your enemy's own few stacks of ships.

Planet colonization is very basic. In early game, you need atmosphere-specific technologies to settle on different worlds and build resource buildings (either cash, science or production), but this becomes boring quickly, later technologies allowing you to simply turn any planet into 250% production Edens. Other buildings, like marine depots and planetary weapons and shields, are totally useless against anything but a stray ship or two, and both you and the AI will simply wipe any enemy planets you come across.

The aesthetic feels like those of old 16-color VGA games of the early 90s where the franchise started, never evolving into an interesting or intuitive user interface. As for music tracks, they feel very uninspired, some someone who fell asleep on his synthesizer and turns his head around every few seconds, and the few tracks there are become very repetitive, to the point of annoying when that's all you've been hearing for hours.


Every once in a while, I start a new game, hoping to recapture the magic from when I first played Space Empire II in 1995. Every time I'm a few hours in, I get too bored to even bother saving before quitting. It then gathers dust for months until I forgot how boring it was and give it another try. Rinse and repeat. Sure, I played this game a lot back in the days, but with modern space empire builders like Stellaris or the Endless Space franchise, I simply cannot recommend it to anyone, under any circonstances.

—————————————————————————
This was just my opinion.

If you found this review helpful, please consider giving it a thumbs up, and feel free to check out more of my (purely opinionated) reviews.

...is a turned-based 4X strategy game. From the Stone Age to the Space Age, lead your civilization to span the globe, competing against your rivals to stand the test of time. This review is based on the game with all DLCs and both Gods & Kings and Brave New World expansions.

A true 4X strategy, Civilization V has you explore a world by uncovering the map with your units, expand your empire by establishing additional cities, exploit the land for strategic or luxury resources, and exterminate your adversaries through five different victory conditions.

Quite a departure from the previous games of the franchise, you now play on a hex-grid map, each tile now limited to 1 military unit and 1 civil unit. Lands defense and offense bonuses become much more important, as well as establishing formations to keep range units at a distance. Cities now have their own energy bar and can defend themselves without a unit.

In addition to the usual food, production and money, cities also produce a variety of additional resources, such as culture to expand your city borders and unlocking social policies, or science to research new technologies and unlocking new units, city buildings and World Wonders.

The map layout change and unit limit is a huge upgrade from past iterations. Gone are the days of the stack-of-doom where all units were pilled up on a single tile, moving your stack to attack the opponent's own single stack. It really reintroduces the strategy element of war in the game, as you must now plan, prepare and place your units for assaults and sieges.

You have dozens of factions to choose from, each of their leaders being memorable opponents with their own personality quirks and special bonus or units, and may end up as friends or foes depending on which religion they adopt in the early game, or which social ideology they identify to in the late game.

Will you use brute force to have your armies march through your enemies, overrun other cultures with yours with the tourism generated by your artists, writers, musicians or artifacts from archeological digs, use trade, diplomacy and espionage to influence other nations and city states into electing you as the World Leader of the United Nations, or surpass humanity’s science as you send the first interstellar ship to Alpha Centauri?

There is no story or quests in a game, and only a few scenarios. If you're hoping for a game that has a narrative like Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri or an evolving lore like Endless Legend, living your "alternate history" moment will require the use your imagination.

AI diplomacy, although better than past Civilizations games, is still broken when it comes to negotiating or reasoning with it. Military unit placements is a mess for the AI, and they'll constantly denounce you for not having removed units from near their border, but they encircle you with theirs all the time.

This game is a resource hog. No matter how powerful your PC is, games will slow down in late game with large maps and many units on the map.


I strongly recommend this game! The replayability is incredible, you can play a thousand games and never play the same one twice. The variety of factions allows you to try different approaches, different styles and different strengths with each playthrough. It's also the most approachable of the franchise, good for any type of gamer, even without experience with strategy games.

—————————————————————————
This was just my opinion.

If you found this review helpful, please consider giving it a thumbs up, and feel free to check out more of my (purely opinionated) reviews.