Recently Joystiq sat down with Brad Wardell (Stardock CEO) and Chris Taylor (Gas Powered Games Founder) recently to talk a bit about Demigod, a little bit about Sins & Gal Civ 2, and of course about copy protection and where the PC games market is headed.  The result?  It looks like PC Gaming isn't dead afterall, and that Stardock/Gas Powered Games have some interesting ideas on where the future lies. Click to read the full interview , it's definitely worth a little bit of your...

Ok, we're in the final weeks of development and testing on Twilight of the Arnor now, so it's really coming down to the wire for sites to put together and post their preview articles.  Video Game Generation is the latest site to put Twilight through its paces.  Nick Arvites took on the daunting task of summarizing Twilight in a few pages. Major items that Nick focused on include the unique tech trees, unique planetary improvements, improved graphics, and of course, the Terror Star!...

As the release of Twilight rapidly approaches, more previews are cropping up around the Internet.  Last Friday, GameShark joined the party with their own impressions on the latest build of the expansion pack.  Troy Goodfellow puts the game through its paces and shares what he found. Like just about everyone else, Troy paid special attention to the degree of customization and differentiation between the races.  Unique tech trees for each race, unique structures, weapons and def...

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 ...

From time to time, members of our community get together and build something for Galactic Civilizations II that really impresses us.  Sometimes it's a really cool graphics mod for the game's planetary textures, or maybe it's a pack of really well-done ship designs, but whatever it is, if it wows us, we figure it'll wow you folks too. Today I'd like to shine a spotlight on the new Alternative Metaverse Project, AltMeta.  As the name implies, the project and site is an alternative to...

This next review is our favorite around the office out of all the ones posted so far.  G4 turned out a glowing review of the game that really dives deep into the raft of features we packed into the expansion pack.  Like many other reviews, this one floats the idea that this is practically a sequel for all the new goodies tossed in.  Here's a brief snippit: "That’s largely due to A.I. wizard Brad Wardell’s hard work retooling the game’s "brain." If you have a powerful enough C...

Gamers' Temple put up their two cents on Galactic Civilizations II: Dark Avatar yesterday, giving it a strong 95% and their Award of Excellence.  Like previous reviews, time and attention is given to the improved graphics, the new spy system, and planetary terrain types, but this one gives a little bit more attention to an aspect of the game that is oddly overlooked; ship building improvements. Here's what the review has to say about what Dark Avatar adds to the Ship Builder: Many ...

GamingTrends tossed together a very nice review of Galactic Civilizations II: Dark Avatar and took the game apart examining the game based on a handful of categories; graphics, sound/music, controls, gameplay, and value /replay value.  Each section is individually scored with the final score of the game being the sum of the separate scores. Dark Avatar received its highest marks for gameplay and replay value, with a good bit of attention paid to how no two games you play turn out quite t...

It seems like every other day another fantastic review for Dark Avatar hits the web.  Today's glowing review comes from the fine folks over at Gaming Nexus who handed us a 9.7 out of 10!.  Reviewer Tyler Sager put the expansion pack to Galactic Civilizations II: Dread Lords under the microscope to try and glean from it every possible secret, find every nook and cranny where we might have hidden away new features and functionality.  The tagline for the review is "A perfect expansio...

One of the toughest game review sites on the net, GameSpot, awarded Galactic Civilizations II: Dark Avatar an amazing 9.1/10 and Editors' Choice Award!  Jeff Lackey took the expansion pack through its paces and decided that it could be called an "expansion" only on a technicality, that it felt practically like a new game. In addition to commenting on the improved graphics, extent to which you can mod the game, and the power of the ship builder, Jeff has this to say about the new planet...

Critical praise continues to come in from the gaming press.  Our latest review comes from the folks over at GameVortex who gave Galactic Civilizations II: Dark Avatar a glowing 95% review.  Reviewer Ricky Tucker breaks the game down into 4 categories; Graphics & Sound, Gameplay,  Difficulty, and Game Mechanics.  Needless to say,  the improved visuals, and AI got a vigorous nod of approval. Here's a little bit on what he had to say about the campaign included in t...