The year 2010 had a lot to offer computer gamers, particularly in the ever popular realm of strategy games. Here you can find a list of ten of the best offerings of the year, along with a brief explanation of what made each game special.
Any gamer worth his salt doesn’t need a detailed explanation of Civilization. Now in its fifth incarnation, Sid Meier continues to improve the franchise with a slicker, more streamlined interface that allows players to keep better track of all game elements — and there are a lot of game elements, more than ever before. Luckily, the animation team this time has done an excellent job of automating certain game elements so that players don’t get bogged down in minutiae as they strive to help their chosen civilization grow and develop toward planetary dominance. A multiplayer mode allows for interaction and competition among players, and though it may sound trite, the retention of the classic music associated with game play will amuse newcomers even as it comforts long timers who will feel like Civilization V is welcoming them home. Civilization has long been considered (through its 20 year history) as one of the best computer games out there.
2. Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty
Winner of the Best Strategy Game 2010 for game review site Gamespot, Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty doesn’t make the classic mistake of a sequel, which is to so radically reinvent the underlying game that veterans are alienated. This sequel takes the best of revolutionary game Starcraft and pumps it up on steroids. Challenges and practice sessions offer enough variety to satisfy newbies as well as long time fans of the original, and amazing visuals and voice acting serve to immerse the player in the fictional world of the game. Additional features above and beyond the ones offered in the original Starcraft keeps this sequel fresh even for those who spent years exploring every last aspect of the original. Starcraft II features three evenly balanced factions, making strategy of the utmost importance — as it should be, in any strategy game worthy of the name. Some would argue this is one of the best pc games out there.
3. Greed Corp
Greed Corp distinguishes itself from the vast bulk of strategy games by postulating an entirely new objective for gamers — the land itself. That may not sound so innovative, since most strategy games hinge upon players maintaining control of planetary or galactic empires. What Greed Corp does is put a completely new spin on the situation. Land in other games is a static resource, there to be seized and then hoarded. Not so in Greed Corp, which features land that is crumbling away into oblivion as play progresses. Four factions compete for this land, playing in turns rather than in a real time simulation. But the land is destructible, and with it, all the resources intrepid gamers have placed atop it. You never know where you stand in Greed Corp — and that’s literally true, since the land beneath your feet may give way at any instant.
4. R.U.S.E.
It’s not often that a strategy game lets players really take advantage of reconnaissance to enact elaborate bluffs and indeed, ruses, on enemy forces, but that’s where this game excels. A real time strategy game, R.U.S.E. encourages players to take unusual risks with their tactics. In so doing, it rises above the rest of the strategy genre. Ambushes become commonplace, and other innovative tactics lead to a level of flexible game play not seen often enough among war and battle simulations. A standoff in ruse is not always what it seems, not when players can have tricks up their sleeves and surprises around every corner.
5. Toy Soldiers
To be on this list, a game has to be executed beautifully, but it also needs a little something extra to mark it as special. For Toy Soldiers, that special element is the refreshing change of back story in the game. There must be a hundred thousand World War II sims in existence, and probably twice that number when it comes to the Cold War or to future history. Toy Soldiers, in contrast, takes as its theme World War I, which until now has been conspicuously underrepresented in the gaming world.
Features of Toy Soldiers include the ability to play the battles from both sides, and enough content to keep the average gamer going for weeks if not months. While multiplayer options are not as extensive as we’d like to see, Toy Soldiers does refresh the whole tower defense subgenre and as such, offers excellent value for the money.
6. Darwinia+
For fans of evolutionary strategy and artificial intelligence alike, there’s no game like the Darwinia franchise, represented in 2010 with the entry of Darwinia+. Making the move from PC to console involved some revisions of how players interact with the game, but for many gamers, it seems that a handheld console control such as a pad is more intuitive than a keyboard for controlling the game elements in Darwinia+. It’s a shame the “mouse pointer” appears to persist even after the game has moved away from mouse control — that’s a flaw the creators should have noticed and rectified before final release. With a new emphasis on scouting ahead rather than snapping right into the units you are investigating, Darwinia+ is more focused on strategy than ever before. Available for Xbox 360, Darwinia+ puts you in control of an evolving digital ecosystem and challenges you to defeat the computer virus threatening to destroy the in game world.
More user friendly and streamlined than the original, Supreme Commander 2 retains the flexible tactics and huge battle maps that made its predecessor such a hit.
8. Lionheart: King’s Crusade
Another innovative setting for gaming is offered in this game, which takes players back to the holy lands of medieval lore and the crusades between Christians and Muslims. Reminiscent of the Total War series, Lionheart focuses more purely on the battlefield itself, dismissing elements of trade and diplomacy.
9. Grepolis
A browser based game from Innogames, Grepolis also offers a somewhat unusual frame story for a strategy game: the world of Ancient Greece, including Alexander the great as well as the fabled hero Ulysses, also known as Odysseus.
10. The Wars
Another browser based strategy game, The Wars began an open beta in 2010 and offers a massive multiplayer online gaming experience based on the control and conquest of three historical kingdoms.
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