A rich, detailed and highly replayable espionage adventure, touting the right mix of strategic and tactical choices within its entertaining fiction.

A game that invigorates with the pure, fierce joy of play that only very best board games can deliver.

More puzzle than strategy, Into the Breach comes with enough bells, whistles and giant robots to keep the formula fresh over repeat plays.

I am extremely impressed with this little indie gem, and wholeheartedly recommend it to fans of strategy JRPGs. Especially, dare I say, to those of you who are looking for a true successor to Final Fantasy: Tactics. I am well aware of how ostentatious that may sound, but the praise is well earned here. Fell Seal: Arbiter’s Mark has earned my respect and admiration, and it deserves your time and attention. Go purchase this game, and support an indie developer who has seemingly done the impossible.

The basic controls are simple that this still serves as an excellent gateway experience to more complex wargames, but it also contains within it deep mechanics that require mastering and that can transform the game into a more complex experience. If you were a fan of the first game, you'll definitely like this one.

With its own objectives, mechanics, and campaign end-goals, Rise of the Tomb Kings is the best DLC in the whole Total War: Warhammer franchise.

Bridge Constructor Portal is a fantastic puzzle game, and a thoroughly Portal title.

I’ve never cared about the people under my command in any game more than in Frostpunk. The window-dressing isn’t perfect. Aspects of the experience are frustrating; a couple of failed games can leave one a tiny weeny bit annoyed. I am not even sure if some of the scenarios are even possible! Yet if the perfect game is a series of choices where every choice has meaning, then Frostpunk is it.

In the end, Two Point Hospital is one of the best strategy games of 2018, managing to surprise me with its extremely competent game design, amazing polish, and superb production values. It has a few faults, like any product, and all of them could be easily fixed by patches should the developers choose to. Regardless of changes, Two Point Studios debut title is a serious contender to the bastion of modern classics.

I can’t find many faults with Pathway beyond the occasional bit of bad luck with the map generation that puts camps and traders too far off-track to be worth going to or throws a particularly tough combat at you straight away. Apart from that small issue, this game is frankly amazing and it kept me up until dawn trying to find out what the Wrath of God was and I am so distraught that I died just before the finale. Let’s just say “I chose… poorly”.

Rimworld is a new standard in survival/strategy sims, and has emerged from early access with grace. Now the REAL fun can begin...

Empires lacks the breadth Imperator has striven for and is a few years behind what Total War is doing these days, but it's a smartly made game and gives a deeper military experience for those who prefer those aspects. It's definitely one to consider and an excellent new contender in the grand strategy space.

The digital adaptation of Raiders of the North Sea was created by Dire Wolf Digital, and they've done an excellent job creating the game on PC and Mobile. Garphill Games, the creators of the North Sea Trilogy (of which Raiders is the second entry) hired a fantastic artist to bring the game world to life, and this has been carried through to the digital version. Animation has been added to give everything that extra touch, and modest use of 3D animations have enhanced the look and feel of the board as you move your pieces around and raid areas on the board.

Corruption 2029 holds its own. It is difficult to make a game like XCOM, as dozens of failed titles have proved, and this is the first one I played that manages to accurately reproduce Firaxis’ formula while adding its own share of interesting mechanics to it. Behind the pretty exterior and the amazing tactical gameplay, you’ll find a gem that’s definitely worth experiencing -- if you can stomach the relatively small scope and repeated maps. That really shouldn’t be a problem, though. After all, war never changes.

It's not an especially pretty game - this is kind of 'indie' project that old-timer wargame studios tend to put out. You'll have to get past the aged graphics and masses of UI menus and tiny buttons, but for those that try, a rewarding world of wonder awaits you.

CK3 is a worthy successor that delivers a powerful mix of grand strategy and RPG gameplay. This is possibly the most polished a mainline Paradox title has ever been at launch.

If you liked Panzer General and the original Panzer Corps, then PC2 is a must buy. The “more so” comes into play as regards gamers who may have bypassed these games in the past, considering them more beer and pretzels or generic mainstream strategy fare. PC2 has added just enough modifications to push the realism level into the wargaming proper category, giving a distinct WWII feel without sacrificing the elegant simplicity that made its ancestors famous.

Jagged Alliance: Rage! Is the closest thing we have to the greatness of Jagged Alliance 2. It's a very trimmed game, delivering the experience rather than a carbon copy of the series. You still have to care for your mercs' health and gear, as well as carrying capacity, but at a much less grognardy level. I dunno if 1.13 mod fanatics will be pleased, but for the others, it's a good introduction to what Jagged Alliance used to represent.

BattleTech is a rote tactics game that manages to stand out on the strength of its deep lore and surprisingly-deep business management model.

All things considered, Iron Danger is a great game. It may lack the sweeping epic scope of others and the marketing budget of a AAA game, but it lacks none of the quality. It’s a fun romp in fantasy Finland, setting stuff on fire and slinging spells left and right. It’s like 2001’s Achron that actually works!

An unforgiving AI enemy, high game configurability, and satisfying interaction makes AI War 2 a worthy inheritor of the mantle.

All things considered, Warhammer 40,000: Gladius’ T’au DLC is a must for anyone who plays Gladius in TYOOL 2020. If you dislike the race (you should), you will at least appreciate them as enemies and find use of their various racial abilities for modding. The question now remains if we’re going to get the rest of important races - like both flavors of Eldar - in the DLC cycle, or will they be saved for a sequel?

Inferno shouldn’t be mistaken for a simple expansion pack, it adds core gameplay loops that improve upon Endless Legend enough to where I consider it a required purchase.

Gears is right at home in the Turn-based genre. A truly excellent tactical experience watered down slightly with mandatory side-quests and a lack of any strategic dimension.

Big, busy and pretty, you can be confident of a good management game that doesn’t take itself too seriously, so long as they can get past some certain disheartening design choices.

Hilariously funny, ridiculously cute, and generally well put together, it only suffers a bit from an increasing reliance on RNG over strategy as the game wears on.

There is something special about magic. The idea that one could easily lift a whole building with their powers and fling it across an incoming army is the kind of power fantasy games are apparently born to fulfil, yet one that rarely -- if ever -- happens. That is especially true of strategy games about magic, where their mystical, boundless capabilities more often than not are reduced to gimmicks and meaningless buffs but luckily, Driftland bucks that trend; not in a flashy way, but by making magic an everyday part of the gameplay. If you are looking for a polished, novel strategy game involving magic, look no further.

Empires Apart is both a good spiritual successor to Microsoft’s classic and a good game in its own right, delivering a very capable experience that successfully brings most of Age of Empires mechanics into the modern age. If you liked Ensemble’s iconic series then you should definitely take a look at this game.