Strategy

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.

This game if I can recall correctly someone recommended I get one of those steam bundle packages that costs like $2 and you get several games in return. Perhaps possibly, the best investment I’ve ever made in the gaming world excluding free games. I love RTS games and FPS games and this game has both in it. Even if you might not have heard of it, this game is super unique and fun for that reason. You can play as either the aliens or the humans. Your goal is to destroy the enemy bases before they destroy yours. As an alien you can pick different species of aliens which each have different abilities to use to attack the enemy. For example, the Skulk alien can climb walls and leap far. As humans, you can buy different equipment like shotguns, jet packs and even mechsuits in late game stages. Inside your initial base is the team commander (this is where the RTS component comes in). You can drop supplies, extract ressources for your team and even jump out the base if you’re under attack to help out your team. Super fun and creative idea of a game. Only wish they had developed it more and fixed some bugs you get when opening it but could just be on the client side for me.

The short version is that Hearthstone faced the same problem all card games faced. You have to constantly add in new cards and gimmicks to keep the meta and game play interesting (and also the investors happy because you need to sell cards at the end of the day). In order to make players wanna play and buy these cards, you have to power creep them. Eventually you end up with way too many cards and gimmicks in the game that the game has lost its identity, but also most of the old cards are unplayable because they're just too weak after 10 generations of power creep. I started playing in 2015 right around the time the Black Rock Mountain Expansion was added all the way to around 2018. I did feel a slight decline in quality around 2017, and after Ben Brode left in 2018, all of it just went to shit. But early Hearthstone really was peak. The decks and classes all had a ton of their own unique identities that mirrored how the characters played in wow. Face Hunter, freeze mage, control warrior, patron warrior (my favorite), handlock, demonlock, and so many other ones (mill druid probably my all time favorite deck to play). Turn 2 coin (always) huffer (YEP) will always be one of the most aids interactions in all of gaming. There was also a very vibrant community with a ton of good streamers like Forsen, Rekful, Reynad, Dog, Savjz, TrumpSC, Kripp, Amaz, Firebat, and so many more. And Blizzcon would be fun to watch because back then most of the players would be these streamers. Since then the game's gone completely to shit. I think around 2016 the oversaturation of cards became an issue, they introduced standard where you only play cards from 3 sets. And while i cant speak on the state of the game for the last couple years, i also have 0 desire to play it these days. If I were rating this game back in 2015-16 it would be around a 9. Today it would be a 3. So just like Sam I was going to give this a 6, but tbh battlegrounds is a pretty fun gamemode and it did bring me back for a year or so. So for that I'll give it a +1.

Until it wasn't. Was really great when it first came out and then for an expansion or two but no trading and way too many cards with power creep just destroyed the game. Wouldn't touch it with a 10ft pole today even though I still dream of the fun nights playing it back in 2014.

Ok yeah I get it league ruined people’s lives and it’s also become something entirely different over time. Not to mention there’s crazy monetization now and some of the skins are competitively egregious. I do think modern league has some redeeming qualities and I did just bust out like 200+ ranked games last season. Is there still a ton of random garbage that makes me hate the game from time to time? Absolutely. Is the arena game mode fun and kind of scratching my battle rite itch? Also yes. Game bad for brain and having a social life and/or job but you can still get a lot of fun out of TFT and arena without hating yourself too much. I probably wouldn’t suggest anyone to start playing ranked summoners rift though.

Chekm8 atheists 😎

There was a time League was the greatest game of all time. Ranked 3v3 on Twisted Treeline was the most fun one could have in this God forsaken game. But while 3v3 was fun, truly nothing of today nor the past can compare to Dominion played on the best alchemical circle on the known universe, The Crystal Scar.

Death.

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.

Much like an addict looking for their next fix, the familiar lands of Summoner's Rift and Howling Abyss have seen my repeated homecoming over and over since I first began my descent into Riot Games' valley of suffering as a wide-eyed, naive youth I wouldn't wish a single session of this game upon my worst enemy. 10/10

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.

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.