Galactic Civilizations III: Crusade Review
Sometimes it pays to be the n00b. When Galactic Civilizations 3: Crusade was released back in May, it came to the attention of eXplorminate staff that I had yet to play any game in the GalCiv series. As such, I was uniquely suited to evaluate Crusade as a fresh 4X experience without the constant comparisons […]
Nate Asked – Day 2
Greetings and Salutations eXplorminators, here is part two of the series. Enjoy Joshua Why talk about the games I’m not playing? I guess it says as much about the state of gaming today as those that I do put time into. It’s been a heck of a year for our favorite hobby, but that […]
Dawn Of Andromeda Review
Sometimes, the timing of a video game release impacts the success of a game as much as the quality of the final product. Dawn of Andromeda, a pausable real-time 4X space game from Grey Wolf Entertainment, could be such a game. A little history lesson first – DoA is brought to you by the lead […]
The Core Mechanism Of 4X Part 1: An eXposition
I recently got into a debate with my good friend and colleague Oliver on our internal eXplorminate forums about what is or isn’t a 4X game. The staff has these debates every now and then, usually sparked by a game that doesn’t exactly fit the pure 4X definition – games like Total War: Warhammer, Sorcerer […]
All That Glitters Is Not Gold
With the release of Endless Space 2 (ES2), a wave in the space 4X ocean has crested. The “Big 4” space 4X games – Master of Orion: Conquer the Stars (MoO:CTS), Galactic Civilizations III (GalCiv3), Stellaris and ES2 – have all landed within the past year along with major expansions for GalCiv3 and Stellaris amidst […]
Endless Space 2 Review
Back in 2012, Amplitude Studios almost single-handedly resurrected the Space 4X genre from a cryogenic sleep with Endless Space. While it was not a perfect game by any means, its revolutionary mechanics and fantastic storylines made it an instant hit with turn-based strategy fans. To date, ES has sold well over a million copies on […]
Galactic Civilizations III: Crusade To Commence Shortly.
We’ve all been wondering when Stardock was going to release their big expansion for Galactic Civilizations III, and the wait is finally over! Crusade launches on May 4, 2017 and promises to overhaul many of the mechanics in the game while also adding quite a few features that players have requested since GalCiv3 released in […]
Stars In Shadow Review
In the Shadow of Orion The original Master of Orion, published by MicroProse waaaaaaay back in 1993, is undoubtedly a classic. I know that’s like spouting “the sky is blue” or “water is wet” around these parts. MoO1 spawned a great sequel and an arguably not-so-great sequel to that sequel. Although MoO didn’t officially create […]
2016 End Of Year Statistical eXamination Part 2
In Part One, I reported just the facts about 4X games released within the lifespan of eXplorminate (2014 and on). In part 2, I’ll be offering my own analysis and observations. Before I jump into that, though, I do want to give a shout-out to SteamSpy.com, Steamcharts.com, and Metacritic. Without them, this kind of analysis […]
2016 End of Year Statistical eXamination Part 1
About a year ago, I wrote a piece that brought together data from SteamSpy and Steamcharts to do an analysis of 4X games launched in 2015. At the time, I didn’t know what to expect from an examination of such data, but in the 12 months since that article was published, I have found myself […]