1. Northern Journey (PC)(FPS)2. Hatchpunk (PC)(FPS)3. Might and Magic IX (PC)(RPG)4. Star Wars: Empire at War (PC)(RTS)5. Chasm: The Rift (PC)(FPS)6. Real Heroes: Firefighter HD (PC)(FPS)7. CULTIC (PC)(FPS)
8. Consortium (PC)(FPS)9. Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30 (PC)(FPS)
10. Forgive Me, Father (PC)(FPS)11. Teomim Island (PC)(FPS)12. Regions of Ruin (PC)(Action RPG)
13. Void Bastards (PC)(FPS)14. Red Orchestra 2: Heroes of Stalingrad - Single Player (PC)(FPS)15. Quake: Scourge of Armagon (PC)(FPS)
16. Quake: Dissolution of Eternity (PC)(FPS)17. Bioshock Infinite (PC)(FPS)18. Chop Goblins (PC)(FPS)19. Ravenloft: Stone Prophet (PC)(RPG)20. Halfway (PC)(Tactical Strategy)21. Brothers in Arms: Earned in Blood (PC)(FPS)22. Might and Magic X - Legacy (PC)(RPG)
23. Civilization IV (PC)(4X Strategy)Might and Magic X - LegacyI've been enjoying my time with the Might and Magic series ever since I tried M&M3 back in 2016. Since that time, I have gone through most of the mainline series. X is where things end, and after the rough patch that was IX, I was a little wary of how things were going to end. But with a jump of over a decade, I figured it would be an interesting experience to check out. And it was, living up to that Legacy subtitle in a variety of ways.
M&MX is a new story set in a different world from previous M&M games. While there are subtle hints of connection, this experience is almost entirely fantasy-based, with the science fiction elements the series started with almost completely dropped save for one particular sidequest. The world is also small, confined to a single peninsula and feeling more like the limited locations of M&M9 than the grand adventures I had in the earlier days. Movement is handled on a square grid and turned based, even in the overworld, and enemies are permanently killed, so there are no opportunities to really grind without clearing out the world entirely. That said, this also frees up territory for traveling, so it's a good idea to do it anyway. Early on, you may feel you get stuck having to go through certain encounters, but eventually the "world" opens up.
At least to an extent. M&MX also keeps the old tradition of having some extremely powerful enemies be accessible surprisingly early, so you have to pay attention where you step and not wander into anywhere flagged as being too dangerous too early. One nice thing the game does is provide audio queues from your party upon entering a dungeon to tell you if it's going to be easier or harder. But even tough enemies can be brought down with the right mix of spells and tactics. In fact, combat becomes pretty rote after a while because you know what spells to cast, how to bate enemies to come to you, and who to kill first in any given group.
That's actually a big part of the problem with M&MX. It just becomes bland and repetitive after a while. Even major bosses only call for the same tactics as regular fights, and while they might do more damage, you can negate almost everything they throw at you. Well, at least with certain spells and skills. Another issue that M&MX suffers from is skills being locked to specific classes, which are locked to specific character races. There are four races to play as in M&MX: Human, Dwarf, Elf, and Orc. Each of these races has three playable classes, based around melee combat, magic casting, or a hybrid ranged approach. Some do certain roles far better than others, like a Dwarf tank melee build can absorb hits like you wouldn't believe, but the Orc melee build dishes out a lot of damage. You have to figure out which classes and their skill sets best match what you want, and because experience is at a premium limit, you'll also want to then specialize with your skills.
That premium has an impact too. The first issue is that certain dungeons require certain races to access, so if you don't bring one of the four races, you're permanently locked out of an area if you want to grind. But just because you kill a monster doesn't mean you get something. Characters that are stunned, unconscious, paralyzed, or dead also don't get experience, so if you have a party member who's getting dropped a lot, they're missing out on vital material needed for better survivability. There were times in the game where I'd have someone stunned, and I'd just have to sit there for three rounds waiting for the status to pass just so I could be sure they got a few more points of experience. It's more than an annoyance.
Another annoyance? The game is buggy. It has some odd visual quirks related to your turn-based movement, with 3D objects in the world spinning awkwardly based on your view, but it also has problems with shimmer lighting effects and textures. I encountered numerous audio bugs as well, and while the game never hard crashed, there were a couple of times I wondered if it wanted to. Also, I had to jump through hoops to even get the game to run, because it installs Ubisoft's Uplay system...which hasn't been used in years. To run M&MX, you have to manually install Ubisoft Connect and deal with all its crap, half the time without it syncing properly.
The end result is some frustration to a game that was already pretty bland. M&MX isn't the worst of the Might and Magic mainline, but it's definitely close to the bottom. There was a DLC expansion that I intend to try, but I fear the main series may basically be dead at this point.
Civilization IVI played a lot of Civilization II in college. Like a LOT of Civ2. When Civilization III came out, I jumped on...and then almost immediately jumped off, because it wasn't what I had wanted. New things were being tried with the series, and while I appreciate what the devs were trying for, it just didn't click for me. So I played more Civ2 and pretty much didn't touch the series again.
That is until I recently was going through my list of games and realized I had Civilization IV on my Steam account. Hell, it had been years, and I was in the mood, so I figured why not try and conquer the world? I installed it with no issues, ran through the tutorial to get the basics, and then hopped into a campaign of conquest.
The Civilization series are 4X turn based strategy, where you start by selecting which of the world's various civilizations to play as and then end up trying to conquer the world through various means. As time has progressed, these means have changed, ranging from outright military conquest to cultural absorption of "lesser" peoples, winning the space race to colonize beyond the stars before others, controlling territory, or simply running the clock and winning by having the biggest score. It may surprise you to know that as bloodthirsty as I am, I actually favor cultural integration and score victories over conquest. Why is that? Because my strategies have always leaned towards technocracy.
One of the major appeals of the Civilization series is that you advance through research, which can take many turns and many years but brings additional military power, cultural power, health and happiness benefits, money, and so on. It also unlocks more technologies to research and upgrade. In Civ2, the early game was a race for gunpowder. Here, that's still not a bad idea, though the game has evolved away from that sort of linchpin tech and provides better balance. So why is research important? Because of the additional benefits.
While the previous Civilization games had government choices, now you have more options with varying levels of upkeep and benefit. Depending on how you like to play, unlocking certain ones may not be necessary, but it doesn't hurt to have options. For example, you may choose a government system based around religious fascism and slavery. I don't recommend it personally, but if you're going to war and need to throw people into the grinder, it's an option. Conversely, I preferred more freedom to pump into research and culture, thus when my cities' cultural influences expanded, they would override opposing nations. This meant that eventually neighboring cities rebelled to join my empire, for which I would then share my tech and upgrade them to expand their cultural capital.
I prefer to do this because this means I can steadily focus on upgrades without having to dedicate as much time to building a military to the detriment of societal construction. I tech up, I use that money to upgrade the forces that do defend my cities so I can fight off any challengers, I avoid wars and direct confrontations, and then once I feel I am far enough along, I can retool my more industrial-focused cities into mass production of weapons of war. Turns out crossbowmen can't as easily protect a city when it's getting hit with aerial, naval, and artillery bombardments and then overrun by tanks and Marines.
But where Civ4 changes the game up a bit the most is the influence of religion. Certainly technologies have religions associated with them, so you can become the founding place of, say, Buddhism and Judaism. You then use these religions as early centers of learning and as opiates for the masses, keeping them happy but also helping expand your cultural power. Need a nearby nation to start looking at you favorably? Proselytizing helps. They accept your state religion as their own, they become more open to you, and then they're eventually begging you for your movies and their cities rebel to join you. Yes, religion helps you further weaponize culture.
Also, religion enables many Wonders of the World, just as tech does. These are generally single-build entities that only one nation can hold, and they can provide huge boons, provided you can deal with the long build times. Tech negates many of them over time, so some aren't as important to focus on, but others have massive benefit. One way to win is to actually build the UN and get voted in as the leading superpower because everyone likes you and your culture. By the time I was done, India had built the Hanging Gardens, Hollywood, and the Pentagon in one city.
Yes, I played as India. Why? Simple, they get faster workers to improve land around cities and open trade routes. Every playable culture has a unique unit. Most are military-based, and they may pop up relatively early or mid-game, so depending on how you play, they may provide some benefit...but India's fast worker is always useful. Your selection of national leader also has some benefits and apparently plays into how the AI behaves, though I found the unit choice more important.
You'll also occasionally have great people born into your society, be they religious leaders, scientists, artists, and so on. These great people can then be used to construct buildings, provide benefits as live in artists, sacrificed for massive cultural or construction gains, and so forth. Elvis helped me convince Stuttgart to join my empire. Hell yeah, brother.
While I will likely never get into Civ4 the way I did Civ2, it's a great game, and it got me back to a series and strategy game style I hadn't touched in ages. I think it's genuinely fantastic. I highly recommend it for fans or even beginners to the 4X subgenre.
