Species: Artificial Life, Real Evolution
Species: ALRE is a game for those of us longing for the glory days of SimEarth and though those days are long gone we can atleast see some semblance of evolution happening here.
The Good
Species ALRE gives players a wide range of options to steer how evolution will occur throughout their playthrough. There are map-wide effects such as raising or lowering the sea level, increasing or decreasing land fertility, screwing around with the global temperature and more.
Other effects are to introduce artifical selection pressure for traits that the player finds (un)desirable. This is achieved through rovers, spawnable autonomous entities that are given a single mission, to either feed or kill those with the trait in question. This allows the player enough freedom to have his creatures evolve however he wants, such as giving them enormous necks or creating a biome consisting only of hyper-aggressive huge herbivores.
– Real player with 49.7 hrs in game
Read More: Best Sandbox Science Games.
I want to be clear: this is not a “game” for everyone, but if the idea is intriguing enough to you and you have some spare cash I would say take the risk and invest in it. There is nothing like this anywhere else. This isn’t some sort of half-assed early access stuff that will poorly mimic other titles then end up abandoned. This is a legit playground for anyone with a fascination with biology, genetics and evolution. If you want to make it a “game” and actively set goals you can. However, a good question to ask yourself is whether you’d be interested in letting the simulation play out without any interference.
– Real player with 45.5 hrs in game
March of the Eagles
I would give a positive review for just about any Paradox title (yes, including Victoria II and Hearts of Iron III, as buggy as they may be), but this is a title I simply cannot baby for its mistakes.
To get one thing off the board immediately, I would NEVER recommend without this mod: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/669074
The reason for suggesting that mod is that it takes you, instead, back to pre-Napoleon era just prior to when he became First Consul, thus there is more time to play and less satellites of France (aka more countries to play as). Plus, the mod offers new technology and an uncommon chance to gain cores on conquered provinces–thus the freedom to build units/ships there.
– Real player with 75.3 hrs in game
Read More: Best Sandbox Historical Games.
For fans of the Total War series who like looking at the bigger picture. Or an excellent entry level Paradox Interactive grand strategy game.
When I bought the game I was a complete Paradox Interactive noob but I always liked the idea of their truly-grand strategy games. However, having played the demos for Europa Universalis III and Hearts of Iron II, I was convinced I would never be able to get my head around the complexities of Paradox’s games. This all changed with March of the Eagles. The era in which the game is set is right up my street and the scale of the campaign map was like nothing I’d experienced before (‘scale’ is a relative term here).
– Real player with 44.7 hrs in game
Europa Universalis III Complete
Whee. Europa 3, like its predecessors and its cousins Hearts of Iron and Victoria (Crusader Kings as well, but that isn’t as hard to learn), is an extremely complex game that is notoriously difficult to learn, not helped by crappy tutorials. I had an edge having been playing this series since its first installment, but it still took some time to get used to everything. So right from the start expect a significant time investment on learning how to play the game, and learning to do well at it. War, Diplomacy, Trade, Exploration, and more. It’s all here.
– Real player with 535.5 hrs in game
Read More: Best Sandbox Historical Games.
As far as I’m concerned, this is the best game ever - especially in this version with the first two additions to the game.
To a certain extent, it is comparable to the Total War games, if they only included the map mode, which would here be simplified to armies only being able to move from province to province and not within a province. However, you have a more complicated diplomacy and domestic policy to deal with.
Another thing that makes it different, and, for my taste, better than the Total War games, is the greater realism and historical accuracy - in this game you can’t just conquer everything, and it remains challenging for the more than four centuries that its timespan covers.
– Real player with 492.4 hrs in game
Imperialism: Fate of India
I do not think this is operable on the Mac, I do not recommend this game.
Failed to get into the game.
Os high sierra 10.13
Tried re-install, failed to enter program, and refuses to stop running.
O/S mojave
When reprogrammed in 64 bit then it may work on Mac.
– Real player with 251.7 hrs in game
First things first:
Remember: The game is a low-budget-game in early-access!
There is no reason to offend or slander the developer. Although the game isn’t finished yet, the developer already fixed some serious bugs and released some patches. Feel free to report bugs in the discussions, the developer actually reacts to it. Be constructive, be polite.
“Imperialism: Fate of India” is a strategy game set in India 1805.
Pick one of the 34 countries and try to conquer the whole subcontinent.
Build troops and equip your provinces with infrastructural buildings to get money.
– Real player with 26.5 hrs in game
Land Doctrine
At one point during play a gamebreaking bug happens in the design screen. It states that I need to add the engine gun and suspension and yet have all three, still the game won’t let new designs get built for this arbitrary stupidity, dear dev, I have no idea where exactly the code is wrong for this but please fix because it’s easily the best 5ish bucks I’ve spent
– Real player with 33.6 hrs in game
A small 5 dollar (or regional equivilant) game that has the player conquer every city on the map using researched and developed tanks and varying levels of trained infantry.
Building up your armies with the right equipment and soldier/tank ratio is important; large numbers of tanks are good for deserts, planes, and quick movement across the map, but will be slaughtered in cities. Large numbers of infantry and a tank battalion or two is great for assaulting and holding cities, but are slower to move on the map. Reasonably equal ratios of tank and infantry battalions are well-rounded, able to take on just about every environment, but won’t be as good as more specialised army groups.
– Real player with 33.3 hrs in game
The White Laboratory
The game was very fun and entertaining. I didn’t know I would enjoy a strategy game, but I did, and this is that strategy game. It was unique in its gameplay, how you would kill enemies and turn the ones with blinking lights into usable blocks or even make things that would go on rails to transport stuff and to maybe kill an enemy on the way.
The problem I have with this game, as marvelous as I find it, is that the physics are wonky at times and sometimes something built will try to flip over when it’s built to be a specific way. I remember having a flying tech try to flip over even though I had less weight on the top and more on the bottom, lasers being on the bottom and projectile turrets on the top. It’s a pain in the you-know-what to deal with, and there’s not much you can do about it but hope to whatever you worship that it works out. I should also mention that sometimes blocks will often spazam or glitch, like a block will be… somewhere..? or a tower of blocks just thinks “F— life.” and breaks the game by spazzing.
– Real player with 68.4 hrs in game
The White Laboratory strikes a unique point between RTS strategy game and Tower Defense game. Both sides of the game seemlessly merge into one, allowing players to essentially design and construct their own towers for defense, or vehicles for offense. Neither are reduntant, both towers and vehicles will be neccasary to play the game.
The actual strategy of the game is both interesting and simple. Fast gun = more bullets less accuracy, slow gun = less bullets more accuracy. From this simple rule, players can utilise spin blocks to make various towers to defend their base, or even make hybrid towers which can be both accurate and slow, or innacurate and fast when needed.
– Real player with 50.0 hrs in game
Computer Tycoon
This is the first review I’ve ever written, even though I have nearly 100 games in my library, so that should tell you something just there. Computer Tycoon is easily one of the greatest tycoon games I have ever tried, right up there with Game Dev Tycoon and Automation (might’ve got the name wrong). It is addictive, and my first 10 minutes of playing it turned into hours upon hours of doing so. For sure worth the price! You get a WHOLE lot of gameplay, and I haven’t even tried hard mode yet. Everything is nearly completely customizable and it is just overall amazing. Some aspects could use some work, though, such as a slow lategame. When you get near 2010, and really 2000s in general, the game really takes a hit. Demand is FAR more than you could ever produce (I mean, you could, but repeating the same process of buying sites, upgrading factories, upgrading recreation, repeat, gets REALLY boring and almost made me stop playing), research gets really slow as in you don’t really have anything to research lategame. For me, it just ran out for a while. Which REALLY made the research department useless, so that is a definite con. Competitors seem to research everything much quicker, and receive an unfair advantage even though you have the best computer on the market PLUS its cheap, and yet they still have the entire world in their color. If there was a way to mass-buy land or mass-produce sites, or to add more factory upgrades, it would make things much better. Again, competitors obviously don’t face this issue and complete everything instantly. At least, that is how it is currently working for me.
– Real player with 712.2 hrs in game
After playing it for hours and as a tycoon-games fan, I think this review would be usefull for both the players and the developer(s).
A good, well-balanced Computer Business tycoon game. It’s main focus is computer parts and models, rather than Sims-style city building, which is what many Comp-tycoon players look for.
There are several pros and cons of this game and it is still in alpha-stage; which I hope will result in a batter, near flawless game.
Pros: Vast range of computer parts from memory units to mother boards. Rather than popping computer products, in this game you built your own computer to sell on the market. That way, there are endless possibilities from selling high-end computers to Celeron-type low-end ones; and maintaining classic Home Computer series. During the game, you’d have many available components to choose from. I named my graphic cards as Burnout 100, 109, 330 etc. Quite fun.
– Real player with 51.3 hrs in game
Hearts of Iron III
This game lets you play as any country during World War 2. I played the base game plus all expansions (SF, FtM, TFH).
You can manage every aspect of the war, from diplomacy to espionage to research to actual combat. You can even try to stay neutral and sit out the fighting if you want, but what fun would that be?
There is an enormous amount of complexity - casual gamers beware! If one part of the war is too tedious for you, it can be set to be automated. For example, rather than personally overseeing every trade deal you can check a box and let the computer handle all of your trades. The computer is not as smart as a person and it can’t metagame but in most tasks it does an adequate job.
– Real player with 755.9 hrs in game
The King of Grand Strategy
Most of you who visit the shop-page for Hearts of Iron III probably already know what this game is all about. It’s a hardcore (as hardcore as it can get, actually!) Grand Strategy Game by Paradox Interactive. That one sentence really says it all.
This review is intended for those who don’t yet know what Grand Strategy (the capitals are there with a purpose!) is all about. Simply put: Grand Strategy games are the best, but also the most complex, pc gaming has to offer. They are immersive, complex, and very addictive. They are not for everyone, that’s for sure. You don’t play them for the graphics, nor for the sounds or some great level-design, but only for the gameplay, which can also be very, very difficult to master. There are tons of stats, of units and/or provinces to be controlled and only one person who has the power to control them: you.
– Real player with 408.6 hrs in game
Railroad Tycoon 3
Ah Railroad Tycoon 3, my childhood. Before I go any further, the game WILL work on Vista and Windows 7. Go to http://hawkdawg.com/ to find patches for blurry textures and the Vista fix.
Railroad Tycoon 3 is the third installment of the Railroad Tycoon series. Developed by PopTop Software and The Gathering of Developers, Railroad Tycoon 3 introduces the 3D engine to the Railroad Tycoon series. Railroad Tycoon 3 has three main game modes. Campaign, Sandbox, and Scenarios. If you want to play a challenging campaign mode, you have it, or if you just want to go and lay some track, you can do that too. In campaign mode, there are three difficulties; Easy, Medium, and Hard. You can choose between 25 different games to choose from, and can go from left to right, or start at the hardest one. In scenario mode, you play against a computer player on a selected map, and race to be the highest company to win. In sandbox mode, you pick a map and time period, and then go have fun!
– Real player with 160.5 hrs in game
The game gets a thumbs up. Classic and tons of fun.
Edit: It does seem to crash very frequently, however. I guess that’s what you get with a game as old as this one.
Cannot, however, give a thumbs up to Steam support on this one. As many others have said, you will most likely find that it crashes within seconds of launching the app. This is because of a default setting that conflicts with just about every modern video card. You won’t be able to get into the settings menu to fix this, crashes too quckly. If you run into this problem, you will have to go to a third party site and download an updated config file, replace the original, and then the game will function. The file is safe, the people who created this have my gratitude, but customers SHOULD NOT have to be subjected to downloading a file from a third party site in order to use a product they’ve been charged for. Upon contacting Steam support, they offered no assistance with this matter. I asked for a refund, was denied (i was outside of the timeframe so that was expected), but I also received no attempt from support to get the game running. The last part should not have happened, no excuse for that. At that point, I finally went ahead and downloaded the file (I was not comfortable doing this). Glad to say it worked :)
– Real player with 158.5 hrs in game
Secret Government
I really want to like this game, and in a lot of respects I do. I actually wish Steam had a middle option between the binary of recommend: yes/no, and the last thing I want to see is the devs give up on this due to negative feedback. However, I’m sure most people would be disappointed by the game in its current state, so “no” it is.
It’s a great concept and it has a lot of promise, but the game is incredibly game breakingly buggy and there are some very obvious gaps where development just never caught up to what was planned. The developers have stated their intentions to keep working on the game, and I really hope I can rewrite this review into a recommendation at some point. Outside of the issues, what the devs were going for is very apparent, and I would love to see it more fleshed out. There is one circumstance in which I would recommend this game that I will include at the bottom of the review.
– Real player with 90.4 hrs in game
Let me level with you: this is a thinking person’s game. Though its aesthetics reminds one of the Europa Universalis games, if you lack the patience to tackle your goals in a subtle, clandestine way, you will suffer. Unlike the EU games, you cannot simply go up to a ruler and order them to go to war with another country, nor can you simply go to the citizens and order them to support your newly created political party. In fact, it is best if neither are aware of your existence at all as they will crush you if their Awareness of your Brotherhood is high enough and it doesn’t necessarily have to reach 100 first for them to start weakening your Brotherhood.
– Real player with 54.4 hrs in game