Recent reviews by Bulrathi

An entertaining conceit, well-rendered.

An excellent core gameplay loop, well-suited to short bursts of play. It's a puzzle game that can be played as an action game, but however you do it, succeeding feels like a key fitting into a lock.

Come for the robots, stay for the nihilism.

Despite it's basic appearance, Battle Brothers is a game of surprising depth of strategy. It's a turn based, squad-based tactical combat game, with a heavy emphasis on logistics. As a result, there have been a lot of comparisons to XCOM and Jagged Alliance, which is fair in the same way that rabbit tastes like chicken. It's still an excellent game and one I heartily endorse.

Galactic Civilizations both updates and falls short of the enjoyment of the Master of Orion games that likely inspired it. In its favor, it takes many of the best aspects of MOO1 and 2 and combines them. There are, however, mulitple things that mar its enjoyment. While the UI has been somewhat improved over the MOOs, Late game can still be a confusing mess, trying to manage various fleets and colonies spread out across the galaxy. The ship movement and combat system is often frustrating, and the ships often look the same on the strategic map. Both MOOs handled this much better. The last mark against it is personality, which feels like it is just a little too subdued compared to the MOOs, which had it in spades. Even with these complaints, it's still a good play for anyone who is a fan of the 4X space genre. Also, it's kind of the only game in town.

Still the best balance of units and factions of any of the Total Wars.