The next installment of the award winning series.

Galactic Civilizations II: Twilight of the Arnor is the current installment of the Award winning series whose predecessors include the original Galactic Civilizations, Galactic Civilizations: Altarian Prophecy , Galactic Civilization II: Dark Avatar , and Galactic Civilizations II: Dreadlords. Aside from being in the same series, these games have two things in common: They all received favorable reviews, and I haven’t played any of them before.

There comes a time, somewhere around the third expansion, when a series needs to be reconsidered for all of those players who are thinking of getting into a series, but don’t know if they really want to make the commitment to a three-plus game purchase. Do they need to buy them all? Are they all equally good? These questions have caused many a gamer to writhe foaming at the mouth during a dilemma caused seizure, only to be carted off to the curb by game store employees.

I was struck by a similar dilemma when assigned this game. Do you need to play them all? No you do not. Galactic Civilizations II: Twilight of the Arnor is not so terribly dissimilar from the previous Galactic Civilizations II games. In fact, it’s simply more advanced graphically, units have been added, and other additional changes have been made that only seasoned GC fans will notice. A simple Wikipedia provided lesson on the storyline so far will have you up to speed in no time.

Actually, the story isn’t all that advanced, and is honestly a bit tired. The old and powerful original civilization ironically called the Precursors lived in the old awesome days, but because “Galactic Civilizations: No Conflict Whatsoever” is a hard sell the culture split into the always popular “Let’s kill everything” Dreadlords and the hippie, nurturing, kitten petting Arnor. These cultures vanish allowing scrappy races like Humanity to evolve and start conquering the galaxy. Then they return and hilarity ensues in a “what’s all this then?” style romp of death orchestrated by the Dreadlords.

So where is the appeal of Galactic Civilizations II: Twilight of the Arnor? Complexity. The options and detail are staggering and, honestly, a bit too broad for this humble critic. Personally, I have a hard time being immersed in anything more complicated than the Total War series so if that sounds a bit familiar you may want to avoid this title.

However, if words like “tech trees” or “flow charts” float your boat down the river of entertainment then you will be hard pressed to find a more complete game than Galactic Civilizations II: Twilight of the Arnor. There are at least twelve races to choose from and they’re all very different in style. That’s not including the ones you can make in the custom civilization editor. Even the stock races you can choose from are customizable right down to the name of the homeworld. Don’t like the name Earth? The name “Terran Alliance” too dry? How about those ship colors? Too plain? Change it up!