Halcyon 6: Starbase Commander is all of your favorite science fiction TV series rolled into one neat, pixelated package. After contact with Earth has been lost, you have to build up the eponymous space station to what might be the last, best hope for mankind. Wage war against the ghastly Chruul, forge temporary alliances with yucky space pirates, build, research, live long, and prosper. No idea how to fit in an obvious Star Wars reference, but you probably get the point. Yes, the point you get.

Thankfully, all of this goes beyond mere pastiche. You cannot deny that there are tons of references here, right down to the names of crew members, but Halcyon 6 is very much its own thing. And that's a good thing, too, because otherwise it would distract from the fact that this is such a great game. If you forced me to put a label on it, I'd probably call it a 4X roguelike with turn-based RPG battles.
There's a strategic layer which has you improving your space station, delegating your fleet, and watching your little empire grow. Your actions and a bunch of random events might lead to tactical spaceship battles. There's something rather satisfying about big ships duking it out in space. Special kudos to the sound design: while the pixelated graphics cannot convey the sheer size of these battles, the sound effects sure do. Massive, booming explosions reverberate throughout space. Yes, I know that's actually not scientifically possible, but we're in soft sci-fi land here...