Recent reviews by storynathan

It's basically SimCity, combining some of the best elements of SimCity 4 and 5, with its own tricks up its sleeve, like letting you annex land and make your own pre-designed infrastructure to lay down (like roundabouts).

This is the best game in the SimCity series. It's the most complex and most realistic. It gives the most freedom to build entire regions of cities and has tons of great mods,

It also has a great terrain editor, allowing you to craft beautiful landscapes for your city, and some fun disasters.

The only downsides are in graphics and performance. The game can run ridiculously slow for a title from 2002, if your city gets big enough. But, turning off shadows generally fixes it.

I love this collection! I've enjoyed these games since I tried them out on my cousin's Xbox at age 15 and playing them off and on since. You have the ability to play with an Xbox controller or a mouse and keyboard, which is a nice selection. The graphics updates are great, especially on the original Xbox games. The 360 games didn't need it as much but they do look better. The games load fast, significantly faster than on my friends Xbox One. Anyway, if you love Halo, then you'll love this!

This is the first tactical game I've seriously tried to get good at. It is really fun and addictive. I like that you can upgrade your squad with new tech taken from the aliens, and even capture and interrogate them.

I love how this lets me play a bunch of Genesis games with controller support. I wish it had the full library, but beggars can't be choosers. The filters help make the old 16-bit graphics look nice on modern screens, although they still look pretty good without them.

This game is super addictive. I love the Civ series because they let you be an emperor from 4000 BC to the near future and guide an empire's full development. I've played every core series Civ game 1-6, and this is my favorite.

The combat system is much less random and more tactical than in previous titles. The diplomacy system is really good and actually better than 6. The game adds fun new elements like city states (small, one city Civs) and ridiculous sci-fi units (giant death robots and Xcom squads). Culture is now used to purchase social policies that strengthen your Civ. Culture wins are no longer just about piling up culture in a handful of cities. They're based on empire wide culture (vanilla and Gods & Kings) or tourists attracted (Brave New World only). The scenarios are interesting and I thought the steampunk one was interesting and unique for the Civ series. It's also the one Civ game that favors small empires over large.

The graphics of this game hold up pretty well. It doesn't look as good as some newer titles, but it is easy on the eyes.

There are only 2 major downsides to this game. One is that it punishes acquiring new cities too much. Seriously, why are people in my capital so angry that I conquered a city of an aggressive neighbor? The other is that the turns are incredibly slow compared to Civ 4, especially on large maps.

Overall, I'd recommend this to newcomers and Civ vets alike. With all the game's systems, it can offer a lot of complexity for those trying to master it, but also, each system is simple enough that it's not completely overwhelming like some more in-depth strategy games.