Master of Orion

This is a high-production-value remake of 1993's original strategy game, and it's a well-observed, loving tribute to that classic. This turn-based strategy game gives players a broad range of important decisions to make, most of which revolve around resources, such as how to find, collect, and use them. Each of the 10 races has different traits that theoretically affect their success at various things, and each race has numerous options when it comes to dominating the galaxy.

Though the learning curve is somewhat steep for players brand-new to the 4X strategy genre, Master of Orion's single-player tutorial campaign gives them a chance to learn the ropes before taking on the main game's more savvy AI or jumping into online competition. The graphics and sound are exceptional, and a healthy sense of humor (rare in strategy games) is readily apparent during diplomacy sequences and in the game's many breaking news updates. Researching technology and exploring planets is fun, especially when anomalies appear or rumors abound of dangerous space monsters hovering in certain sectors. Less fun is the lackluster space combat, which can be manually controlled but is visually bland, and the tedious mid-game feels like one long countdown. (The latter has always plagued traditional 4X games, and Master of Orion hasn't solved it.) Still, there's enough here to keep intro-to-mid-level players interested for a good long while, and if you want to up the ante, you need only jump online and challenge some real-live players.