Master of Orion 2 stands out to be as having one of the best interfaces ever designed. The phrase "knowledge at a glance" really applies - you can get a lot of information about your current empire with just a few mouse clicks. This really shines in contract to MoO 3 which had about the worst game interface I've ever seen containing both too much useless info in some screens and nowhere near enough info in others. MoO 2's race customisation is both amazing fun and spectacularly unbalanced at the same time. Certain combinations are near unstoppable - the stock standard Silicoids are extremely hard to beat since they have enough industrial capacity to start colonising from the very start of the game due to not requiring farmers or having to worry about pollution. The second best combo would have to be aquatic + subterranean + growth bonus. Honestly, I've tried a number of 4X space games. None of them really can match up to the first two MoO games.
I played the first game years ago - it was a classic and showed Westwood really knew how to make an RPG. There was one problem that ended my game for me and sadly I never went back to it - eventually you run into these stone faces and each of which wants a particular item in order to let you pass. One of them wanted a healing herb, but I didn't have any and hadn't seen any recently. By that point in the game I had other healing options so I'd been ignoring any that I did see. Still, it's worth replaying.
