Recent reviews by JaguarUSF

The game includes robust game customization, including randomized tech trees and custom factions. The most striking thing is very slow initial production (your first colony ship can take upwards of 70 turns), so you must invest in exploration and upgrading your starting world first. It takes about 100 turns before things really get going production-wise. Production at a colony can be allocated between improving infrastructure (which improves production), planet quality, and construction of buildings and ships. Outposts can be built at asteroid belts (for production, trade, or research bonuses) or dead stars (for strategic resources, research, and income). Systems can be surveys using ships or remote exploration, a neat game mechanic where you designate an area of the map and after several turns, the area is explored more thoroughly. The research tree can be randomized, and additional techs in the same group and level are more expensive (requiring you to pick and choose, another neat mechanic). There are also space culture upgrades (like a culture tech tree in Civ), which is the primary way of getting ships early in the game. Straightforward diplomatic options are available with other factions. The budget is easy: just allocate a percentage of your income to research and space culture, and the rest goes into your coffers. Tax rate can also be increased, at the detriment to production. Custom ships can be designed, and there is combat between opposing ships. Leaders can be assigned to planets or ships, and they occasionally make requests. Random events also pop up every once in a while. The interface is good, providing a list of targets for expansion and your ships, and including extensive tool-tips, although sometimes things don’t update (like ship locations / destinations when changing orders during a turn). Interstellar Space: Genesis has a number of unique gameplay features and is recommended so far to fans of 4X games.

This game seems very promising with interesting strategic decisions. It's mostly played on the surface of a randomly generated planet, but you can build ships and travel to other star systems. The factions are distinctive and play differently with interesting unique traits. The most immediate unique trait of the game: you must have a district manned by a citizen in order to collect the resources (food, production, or research) from a tile. The slow rate of population growth makes the early game involve a lot of "next turn," but once you get a couple of medium-sized cities things pick up. You can design custom units with equipment you have researched. Diplomacy and research options are fairly standard, the latter of which is similar to Endless Legend (split into tiers). The "paths" feature gives you bonuses for choosing research and completing quests in a certain theme. Edicts give you some options as well. I had a problem loading my first saved game, but did not have any issues loading my second. Already a fairly complete game, I'll be looking forward to improvements in Pax Nova throughout early access.

Starting in 304 BC, you can start with any nation from England to India. This is a more military-focused game than other Paradox titles, as you are trying to constantly expand, thanks to easy-to-obtain casus belli. The interface has a lot of statistics, but features such as the macro builder and robust tool-tips ease the process of gathering information. The detailed map contains a ton of cities, grouped into provinces, each of which produces taxes, research, or manpower depending on the number of citizens, freemen, tribesmen, and slaves present. Each group of cities can have a governor that can dictate a policy direction. Characters in the game can also hold office in the government, or lead troops. There are a lot of Crusader Kings-like events dealing with characters that add flavor to the game, and individuals can be bribed, imprisoned, recruited from other lands, or revolt against you in a civil war (bringing their own troops against you). Each province can have a number of trade routes; each good provides a specific bonus (access to a military unit, population increases, happiness, et cetera) and income. Power points (slowly accumulated over time) can be spent on new inventions, religious omens (various bonuses), diplomatic actions like casus belli, or military tradition (more bonuses!). Diplomatic options are plentiful, though you can only ally with nations of the same size. There are several land types to recruit, and mercenaries can be an option in nations with a lot of income but not a lot of manpower. Units can be automated to assist in especially spread-out countries, or ordered to build roads, construct border forts, or reorganize (faster reinforcement rate for a cost). Despite the expansion-heavy focus of the game, aggressive expansion penalties with make the AI unite against you if you expand too far too fast. The AI provides a good opponent that will sign appropriate treaties and declare war reasonably, and barbarians can be a nuisance in large nations. Imperator: Rome is a more streamlined grand strategy experience that incorporates the better aspects of Europa Universalis and Crusader Kings.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4PoEtNmyxQ

The game features procedurally generated islands where you must place complimentary buildings near each other. Appropriate buildings near each other earn points, which are used to level up and unlock another set of structures. Failure to accumulate enough points results in starting over with a new island. The difficulty results from limited space to place buildings, and having to decide which structures to place; the randomized islands give a lot of replay value and extend the life of the game beyond a one-time puzzle. ISLANDERS is a simple but challenging strategy game

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNn3LmETkwg

This iteration of the series features missions with a set of mandatory and optional objectives, sandbox maps (including randomly generated ones), and cooperative and competitive multiplayer. The interface is improved, as the combination of map overlays and a comprehensive almanac makes finding information fairly straightforward and efficient. The quantity of buildings has been expanded, with many options available to provide housing, resource collection and processing, mass transit, citizen services like hospitals and churches, research, tourist destinations, and military outposts. Citizen detail is high, as individual walking paths are needs are tracked. Different political factions and foreign powers will frequently offer objectives to improve relations and earn a reward, giving you intermediate objectives, even in the sandbox mode. The broker offers missions to increase your Swiss bank account, the funds of which can be used to instantly research new buildings or provide other nefarious benefits like improved relations or ignoring ultimatums and demands. Research can be done to unlock new edicts to issue or alternate work modes, while the constitution sets country-wide policies. Raids from pirates or commandos can provide new citizens, loot, or annoy foreign countries, and specific trade routes can provide bonuses to income. While the brand new features (multi-island maps, raids, mass transit, revamped research and Swiss bank account usage) aren’t groundbreaking, this is the most refined Tropico experience available.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NT7kX8elcs4

The game features three campaigns, one for each of the slightly different stone-age factions, skirmishes against the AI on only eight maps, a survival mode, and online multiplayer. Worker units are used to collect food and crystal, used to recruit new units, build structures, or perform upgrades. Power is used primarily to cast a limited variety of spells (and, in the case of one faction, to recruit units). Wild dinosaurs can be hunted for food, or recruited by one of the factions. Faction-wide upgrades are given with battle experience, while settlement and unit upgrades can be researched with crystal. The skirmish AI provides an actual challenge (without cheating), as it is very efficient at collecting resources and will attack vulnerable positions. Warparty is a solid real-time strategy game that only really differentiates itself thanks to its setting, though it does feature above-average skirmish AI.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTimiwq4Ypg

The game features varied map dimensions (plus a simple level editor) with sandbox (AI competition that will research new components), scenario (with objectives), and freeplay modes. Cars are made by progressing through production slots in a specific order; each station takes a different amount of time to complete, so minimizing waits will maximize efficiency and profits. Many research options are available: new car components, car body designs, and individualized production slots (to break up a single process into multiple steps) give you a ton of strategic options. In addition, parts and power can be produced in-house to increase profits, in addition to late-game marketing and varying your builds. While the basics of factory construction are the same every time, the sheer amount of research options and semi-random order in which AI competitors start using specific parts (so they are “expected” to be included in your vehicles) make the focus of each playthrough slightly different. Production Line is a satisfying management title with steadily increasing difficulty and complexity.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGDTlmU9r1I

The game features career modes for both rally and rallycross, plus daily and weekly online challenges. These community events use money earned in the career mode to purchase additional vehicles, so new players are prevented from participating in any events that do not use the lone car unlocked from the outset. Money can also be used to upgrade cars and hire additional staff to improve repair times. Custom events and championships can be created using any track and vehicle without unlocking them. DiRT Rally 2.0 has a fine selection of vehicles across multiple classes, and features six locations for rally and eight rallycross tracks. Each location has six tracks (plus their mirrors), which is less content than the procedurally generated (but overall lower quality) rally courses from DiRT 4. The handling is improved, and tracks become worn during the course of a rally (though my novice driving ability can’t feel a tangible difference). More tire options are available, but the damage model is still very forgiving. DiRT Rally 2.0 is definitely geared towards experienced players, and if you prefer better handling over the randomized tracks of DiRT 4, this may be the better simulation for you.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWmfbl37QaQ

The campaign is typical for a strategy game (defend against waves of enemies, attack enemy bases, use only hero units against a lot of foes, stealth) with nothing innovative. The skirmish mode only has a handful of maps and only one faction, though online play is available. The interface needs the ability to repeat build queues, and building descriptions would be useful. Workers collect the two resources (wood and gold) automatically once assigned; there is a unit limit per building and a resource quantity limit, so expanding out to a second or third base is a necessity. Numerous houses must be constructed to increase the population cap, though there is a hard cap of 200; after this point, researched upgrades will improve units. Spells can be cast by heroes or on the map by building a temple on an appropriate location. Creep locations can be raided by your hero to level up, but these are ultimately unnecessary since combat happens so quickly that spells can only be used once or twice. The AI is extremely inert and rarely attacks your position in skirmish games. Defenses are strong (and cheap) enough that any army that is below the 200-unit threshold will be repelled, and since everything takes so long to build, you really need to ensure that your first assault is your last. Bannermen has interesting streamlined resource collection, but shortcomings in the AI, campaign, skirmish mode, and repetitive gameplay mechanics lose the battle overall.

https://youtu.be/nENzCJH6TCc

The game is free-to-play, but not really: the free version acts more like a demo, with access only to the tutorial mountain and the main peak for one week. The Ultimate Edition unlocks everything for $20, including custom outfits and all 13 locations. The settings consist of an impressively large mountain and a smaller village, but are filled out with tiny stunt-focused areas; one additional large mountain to explore would be appreciated. There are a number of events to play (time trial, freestyle, half pipe), but they are focused on experienced players and cannot be customized in any way. Multiplayer is also available, but only takes place on the large mountain and events can’t be played with others. Both skiing and snowboarding are available, although the controls (typical for an action sports game) are identical. Mountains can be customized with props like jumps and rails in free roam mode. There are noticeable bugs in the game (input occasionally not accepted in menus, crashes to the desktop, clipping through the terrain, and server issues where progress will be lost). While SNOW can be enjoyable, it is ultimately buried under an avalanche of shortcomings, including having only one large mountain, the lack of custom events, limited multiplayer, and bugs that should have been fixed in over five years on early access.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6lpQcnW_D4