This game holds a major place in my heart, and I look back very fondly on the HOURS I put into this game in the past. It’s been a very long time since I played it, however, so this will truly be a trip down memory lane. In fact, initially, I wasn’t even sure I could include it in the Game Awards, because I had no idea whether I could find a copy that I could make work on modern machines – especially since there was, ultimately, a sequel to overshadow the genius of the first one (the second one wasn’t as fun, in my opinion). Luckily, I discovered that GOG has a version that does just that… which was quite a shock to me. I doubt most of you have even heard of this game, it’s that obscure. The game is set in a fictional Chicago during Prohibition, and really does a great job of making you feel like most of your gang activities must be carefully hidden by having an elaborate system of “front” businesses for each of your venues. In fact, one of my memories of this game is literally printing off page after page of the game manual and carefully cutting and gluing it together to make a real manual so I could have a better reference to figure out what can go where. (In fact, I think I still have that little booklet somewhere in one of my storage boxes… LOL..)

I’m sure quite a few of you played this one in one of it’s iterations. I found this game when it was still Caesar II – and loved it. I played the game’s sequels, too. The third in the series is widely recognized as being better than the fourth, but the fourth was easier to capture, so I took the easy way out.

Caesar was one of four games in the Sierra city-building series, which has been a staple of my gaming history. (Spoiler: the others – Zeus, Emperor, and Pharaoh, are included in my list elsewhere…) Caesar holds the distinction of being the first game that came out in the series, and also of being my least favorite. Again, if you’re going to play it, I suggest playing either Caesar 3 or going way back to Caesar 2. Caesar 4 really isn’t all that good.