Simulator

The game really revolutionized the franchise; it's highly addicting, has a lot of interesting mechanics, and requires a ton of time and patience when playing with friends lol. You win the game by guiding one of many historical nations from the ancient era into the far future. You can achieve victory through military conquest, scientific space travel, global diplomacy, or cultural dominance. The sky is the limit with revisionist possibilities; for example, you could win the game with Ghengis Khan focusing hard on science to leave Earth or Gandhi being a warmonger lol. It initially feels overwhelming, but once you dedicate time to just to learn the basics, you'll get hooked on that "one more turn" loop. As the game progressed, catching onto all of the systems is something that just clicks. The other thing that makes Civ 5 goated is how flexible and open it is for mods, and that the modding community is still very active.

Is it janky? Yes. Is it glitchy? Also yes. Is it just a running simulator 90% of the time? Still yes. Is it fun? Idk... Sometimes I guess. In all seriousness this game has a wonderful blend of peaceful and tense moments. The stakes are high but the world is vast, so unless you're actively looking for fights they can be avoided and you can just chill out and loot. A good server goes a long way for vibes and play styles which means most people can find a style they like.

Chekm8 atheists 😎

I was flying planes, slicing fruit, and pushing people off platforms. what a great time

Out of all sandbox games this one has to be my favorite. The progression is pretty fun, there's always something to be busy with and a goal to reach. There's enough content and the mechanics are so robust you won't need to mod it to enjoy the experience. Hell, the only reason I mod it is because I just want More content on top of what already exist.

Look, I'm not going to lie to you. I have never played Terraria. Not once. I don't even fully know if you play it with a mouse or with your feet. But my friends keep telling me it's incredible, and these are the kind of people who have strong opinions about which version of a game is the correct version, so I trust them more than I trust most government institutions. From what I gather, you dig holes? And there are bosses? Someone told me there's a giant eyeball that flies at you, which sounds rude. There's also apparently a wall of flesh, which I refuse to think about too hard. People build castles in this game, and then zombies kill them while they're building the castles, which seems like a fair tradeoff for whatever else they were going to do that evening. I'm decent with AI tools and APIs, so I figured I'd just ask an LLM to summarize Terraria for me and call it a day. It told me Terraria is a 2D sandbox game where you mine, fight, build, and eventually defeat a moon. I have no follow-up questions because I am scared. My friend has 800 hours in it. His wife has left him twice. He says it was worth it both times. Rating: 9/10. The one missing point is because I'm pretty sure that eyeball thing is going to give me trouble eventually.

There isn't too much to be said. Everyone's played Minecraft. Everyone loves Minecraft.

This game is the number one ranked game on the steam store for good reason. There's endless amounts of content in this game (especially if you include secret seeds and calamity/other mods). Year after year the incredible devs will keep releasing "the final update." And no matter how many times I've played through this, I keep wanting to come back to it and get friends to go through a new world together. In terms of the game play, the progression is incredibly fun and satisfying. There are so many different builds and items that are all unique and viable. Unironically, the crafting aspect of the game is one of the most gratifying and best reflections of the progression. Getting aglets and anklet of the wind to make lightning boots to then make frostspark boots (same with the lava boots) to make the terraspark boots. Same with the cellphone, when you combine all the seemingly useless trinkets you’ve picked up from the very beginning of the game, or the zenith that combines every single sword from every stage of the game to create one of the most powerful items. It’s just such a cool way to visualize all of the progress. The variety of movement options like the shield of cthulu or the balloons, boots, ufo/broom/fishron mounts, all feel very smooth and fun. The bosses are some of my favorites with the daylight empress fight being one of my favorite ones. The game challenges you to get better with your movement, creating arenas, and coming up with creative ways to outsmart the bosses. The pace of the game feels very good. Although the game gets harder and harder as you progress, it provides you with a lot of quality of life items (like pylons) that speed up all the other aspects of gameplay (except for clearing out the corruption, jesus christ). All in all, an incredible game. I still have yet to complete my 500 fishing quests, but I know for sure I’ll be back to finish that some day :)

Played this game right as it came out and have come back to it a number of times. It's great. There's tons to do, you can have a great time solo or with friends and you can replay it in so many different ways. Works well with mods and they're also supported well which is a massive plus for me. It might just be time to play this one again. I could use a little 2 block wide tunnel down a few thousand blocks and maybe pegasus boots + cloud in a bottle. Music is surprisingly fantastic, atmosphere is great. Art is stylized and knows what it's about. Gameplay is fun and everything just works well. No complaints from me.