So I'm thinking I need to expand a little on this game... mostly because it's damn good. So after completing a horrible, mind-shredding, assignment for school, I completely slacked off this weekend. Read a book, watched tv & movies, and gamed. And by "gamed" I mean, played Galactic Civilizations II: Gold Edition (GC II).

It's a friggen awesome game. Along the lines of Sid Meier's Civilization, sorta thing. "One more turn," turns into "What the f***?! It's morning already?!" And I'm not even exaggerating. Fun weekend though :D

To start off with, you have the diverse species options and the ability to create a custom species. Want to create a galaxy-conquering race of warlike squirrels? Go for it. An alternate version of humans who breed like crazy? I'll leave that one aside. But yeah, the gameplay is standard fare, but is extremely well done. It's streamlined so you can micro- or macro-manage as much as you'd like. As you may have gathered, I'm an epic game fan, and while the story here (in the single-player campaigns) is decent, I greatly prefer the random games where I can spend hours (and hours and hours) building up my civilization, fending off my (vile, despicable, and surprisingly cunning) opponents, and earning a well-deserved victory video.

One thing I should make express note of is the customized ship building. It's been talked to death about, so I won't go into it, but the options are only barely limited. Pretty great to romp around the galaxy with a fleet of your custom-built DREADNOUGHTS... or even more amusing to watch as your custom-built home defense ship (singular) (with no engines but 100+ defense) fends off an armada of bad guys. Good times, good times.

Anyway... good hunting, all.