Skip to the game review: jump to 1:58.
Check out the Fading Suns pen-and-paper RPG if you enjoy the World of Darkness - specifically, the original Vampire: The Masquerade and Werewolf: The Apocalypse were written by the same authors.
Play as one of the five noble houses striving to be crowned Emperor. Each house comes with its own history and traits, but you can personalize them further. Taking a negative trait gives you extra points for more positive traits.
In Fading Suns, the once advanced human civilization has collapsed into a space-faring medieval empire connected by "Jumpgates" left behind by a mysterious ancient civilization.
Winning the game takes several phases. First: become Regent by winning votes through diplomacy or theft (yes, theft). Then declare yourself Emperor and survive 10 turns while everyone tries to kill you. If you live, you win!
Researching forbidden technology will give you access to very powerful units, but it will also piss off the Church. An angry Church will attempt to destroy your research facilities and erase all of your technological process. Sucks to be you.
James isn't the only high profile gamer to harbor a deep love for this game. Journalist and reviewer Tom Chick created an in-depth FAQ back in 1997. We've linked it for you in the description below. ;)
Emperor of the Fading Suns was developed by the same company that created the pen-and-paper Fading Suns RPG. Appropriately named Holistic Designs, they're a multimedia company that still publishes new content today.
Sadly, EFS was released with numerous bugs and incomplete features that dragged down its review scores. After a few patches failed to grow its audience, it became abandonware.
Matrix Games (publisher of Pandora: First Contact) tried to acquire the rights to remake EFS in 2000, but by then the copyright issues were so tangled they had to give up the project.
A fleet-commander spin-off called "Fading Suns: Noble Armada" was also attempted, but canceled. In 2011 the developers announced plans to revive it as an iOS game... but the curse continues: the last update came in 2012.
Despite the game's struggles, there is an upside! EFS stores all its data in plain-text .dat files which, to the delight of the modding community, means game assets can be easily changed in any text editor.
A strong modding community keeps the game alive and active, though quietly so. James likes the Hyperion mod, but the Nova mod is another popular choice. Both are linked below!