The second, and last, expansion pack to Galactic Civilizations has been released!

The new expansion pack, Twilight of the Arnor, adds hundreds of new features, gives each civilization a unique technology tree, a unique set of planetary improvements, star base modules, ship parts, and more. 

Moreover, with Twilight of the Arnor, Stardock went back and revamped the graphics for the game to bring them up to the state of the art.  A new sound track has also been added along with updates to the computer AI.  It also reintroduces the Terror Star, the ultimate weapon last seen in the original Galactic Civilizations as well as a new victory condition called Ascension. Online tournaments have also been added to allow people to compete at playing the same map and scenario and submit their scores to the GalCiv metaverse.

Link: Twilight of the Arnor

I have been playing the multiplayer beta of the upcoming Battlefield: Bad Company on the Xbox 360 for a few weeks, and I wanted to give my initial impressions.

Likes:

• Wide open maps which are very open as compared to the smaller, close quartered oriented maps in COD4. They allow more freedom for classes like sniper, but seem to be already well balanced to where they can’t dominate.
• Nice selection of weapons kits, unlocks, and vehicle weapons so far.
• New “Gold Rush” multiplayer mode is fun, and a nice change from typical MP modes.
• Destructible environments are just plan cool, although they need much tweaking before final release.

Dislikes:

• Helicopter controls are just confusing. They were fine in Battlefield: Modern Combat. Should have left it alone.
• Team killing is out of control. It was bad in other editions of BF, and just in this limited beta it is already rampant. TK’ing for the artillery strike and others is just frustrating. Follow in the steps of COD4 and just eliminate team kills all together.
• No customizable weapon kits.
• Weapons are way unbalanced. Machine gun hits barely register at close range.

Yes, I know this is still a beta, but I hope the dev team takes things like this into suggestion. I really like the beta so far, and will definitely purchase, but these few annoyances will likely turn people off eventually.

Latest patch for Sins of a Solar Empire is out!

Use THIS LINK to update to the latest version. If you are in the Impulse Beta, use the link provided here to update, don’t use Impulse to update as we’re in the process of updating the backend to support fast transfers of lots of little files which hasn’t been perfected yet.

View: Change Log

Download: Sins of a Solar Empire v1.04

This weeks GFW podcast features Stardock CEO Brad Wardell as a guest, where among many things, they discuss the state of PC gaming.  It’s a great episode to be sure to download it and check it out.

Link: http://www.1up.com/do/feature?cId=3148397

If you are a fan of FPS’s on the Xbox 360, then  you are probably already aware of the upcoming Battlefield: Bad Company.  Fileplanet is taking registrations for the Xbox 360 beta which will feature two maps, and will begin on March 25th.

Details and signup info at the link below.

Link: BF beta signup