Last week, we let everyone know that GameSpy was doing their Readers Choice voting for various Game of the Year categories.  The votes cast there were not for the main GameSpy Game of the Year events, just Readers Choice.  Well, today GameSpy fired off the editors picks for best PC games of 2006.  We placed #6 on the overall list , but took the gold for Best PC Turn-Based Strategy Game of the Year ! Here's a sample of what GameSpy had to say about Galactic Civilizations II: ...

You've shown your support for us at GameSpy.  You've spread the love and merriment at 1Up.  I'm sure you've also told all of your friends and family which game is the best PC game this side of Barnards Star.  Well, though your tireless efforts on our behalf are always appreciated, we must once again reach out to you, our devoted fans, to help further spread the word of Galactic Civilizations II: Dread Lords. This time around, it's the GameSpot Best & Worst 2006 Awards.  T...

If you've been past the PC section of IGN today, you'll see a massive, evil looking robot staring at you framed by the words "Galactic Civilizations II: Dark Avatar Review."  This makes IGN the first media outlet to put up a review for the expansion to one of the top games of 2006.  The review is a glowing endorsement of the expansion and a good read if you're on the fence about the game. Another indicator of how good Dark Avatar it that after awarding Dread Lords an 8.7 last year,...

UPDATE:   If you can't make it to the developer chat but still want a shot at having your questions asked, you can sign on to our IRC chat and join #chatquestions early.  Just ask your question in the channel and I'll log it, and add it to the potential list for the dev chat Wednesday night! This Wednesday, February 7th at 4pm PST / 7pm EST / midnight GMT we will be hosting a developer chat to answer questions about the upcoming release of Galactic Civilizations II: Dark Avata...

So the game is "Gold" and your mouse finger is getting that galactic genocidal twitch again.  You want to subjugate races, forge treaties, establish your trade empire and deploy your newly designed "Vicious Knid" Class destroyer against your opponents.  Alas, you'll have to wait a bit longer before satisfying your inner megalomaniac, and for the time being draw your Galactic Civilizations sustenance from these two succulent previews from GameShark and GamingNexus . Tyler Sager took...

Last week was a good week if you're a Galactic Civilizations II fan eagerly awaiting the release of Dark Avatar.  Two great previews went up that are packed with a lot of information. The first comes from 1UP.Com, posted last Wednesday.  Writer Mike Nelson took a crack at the latest beta build and is personally comforted by the Drengin's continued dominance in the interstellar culinary field.  But Drengin Fire Chili aside, Mike took some time to look closely at some of the new ...

 Game of the Year awards continue to trickle out as we pass safely into the 2007 gaming season.  Today, we move on to GameShark and their picks for 2006.  We received two nods of recognition this year. PC Game of the Year Runner-Up. We made it to the final round and were up against PC gaming heavyweights such as Bethesda's Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion,  Monolith's F.E.A.R: Extraction Point, Civilization 4: Warlords from Firaxis, and the ultimate winner of this year's PC ...

Today we have two new previews of Galactic Civilizations II: Dark Avatar to point you to.  With the release of the expansion drawing ever closer, the press is really ramping up and sharing their first thoughts on how the game is shaping up. The first preview is for you French-speaking folk.  HardGamers.com , a prominent French-language gaming website has posted a preview. Second, for our English-speaking fans, comes a preview from our friends over at GameSpy .  Allen 'Dels...

IGN's Steve Butts takes a look at a recent build of Galactic Civilizations II: Dark Avatar and posts his impressions of the upcoming expansion to one of the top strategy games of 2006.  The preview takes  a look at features such as the new races in the expansion (Korath Clan and Krynn Consulate), the new espionage system, and the new additions to the star map.  If you aren't in the beta, of particular interest is how with Dark Avatar you can not only create your own custo...

2006 was a great year for us, starting out with the release of Galactic Civilizations II: Dread Lords.  The game received a great deal of critical praise with multiple editors choice awards, and we ended out the year with a good number of Game of the Year nominations and awards. We were nominated for: 1Up.com - Reader's Choice Strategy Game & Game of the Year GameSpot - Strategy Game of the Year GameSpy - Reader's Choice Strategy Game (Non-RTS) and Game of the Year ... an...

GameSpy's Allen Rausch recently took the latest build of Galactic Civilizations II: Twilight of the Arnor for a spin to see what had been added to the game since he last played it back in November.  After many hours with Beta 6, Allen found himself still consumed by the new, unique racial technology trees, and the implications they have on gameplay. "We played through several games as the Krynn and we discovered that we had actually underestimated the impact that unique technology tre...

Huzzah! We've completed our work for the night and the forums are back up and running.  You'll notice a number of visual changes, and you'll hopefully notice improved speed and general performance. Please post any issues you run into here.  We've done a lot of testing this past week and tonight, but if something slipped through we want to know so it can be fixed quickly. Thank you all for your patience.

When: Sunday February 17th, 8pm EST - Monday February 18th 9am EST This weekend we will be conducting extensive maintenance on the database systems that power Stardock's forums, articles systems and blogs across all websites.  During this period we will be locking the database preventing anyone from posting to the forums (new threads, replies, private messages etc). For full details on the upgrade, click the link below.

There's no doubt that 2007 has been a good year for Galactic Civilizations fans.  In February we released the Dark Avatar expansion pack, and have completed several major game improving patches.  We top the year off with the upcoming release of our second expansion pack: Twilight of the Arnor.  Eager to learn more about the soon-to-be-released expansion, GameSpy strategy games guru Allen 'Delsyn' Rausch sat down with Brad Wardell to try and glean a few more tidbits of information...

Dragon*Con, America's largest gaming/art/all things geeky convention is happening this weekend in Atlanta, Georgia, and if you're going to be attending you'll have a chance to meet Cari Begle (CariElf, Lead Developer) and Paul Boyer (Mormegil, UI, Art & Animation) live and in the flesh!  Both will be in attendance and speaking at several panels again this year, giving you a chance to ask them what its like to work in the games industry, and what it takes to get a job. These are the ...