From: http://www.gamersinfo.net/articles/2118-sins-of-a-solar-empire

Stardock has had a solid success with Sins, making it to the best seller list (with no traditional advertising!). Well done :D

Action is all in real time; this includes fleet action which can involve frigates, cruisers, and capital ships. Scout frigates can be directed to explore planetary systems. Other frigates and cruisers can provide close support, planet bombardment, fighter cover, and missile launchers. The core of your fleet is the capital ships. These can gain experience through training or by fighting battles. As you’re limited in how many capital ships can be activated, you will need to carefully manage them as battles are waged.

Planets have gravity wells which restrict ships when phase jumping. Phase jumping can only be enacted along phase lines that lead to other systems. The resulting choke points provide excellent strategic opportunities as you progress in conquering your enemies. There are logistical and tactical buildings that you must build to improve your economy and to feed the war machine. There is an empire tree for the war and civilian sides, each one covering three branches.

More about Sins of a Solar Empire

Genre: games • role playing • Platform: Pc •
Developer: Rampant • Publisher: Rampant • http://www.rampantgames.com/frayedknights/
Status: I played this one • Actually I am still playing it •

From: http://www.gamersinfo.net/articles/2101-plunder

The game has a name! Plunder. The core gameplay hasn’t changed. You have a ship. Your ship has three properties - canon, armor and speed. Each properties has three levels of strength, but how many total upgrades allowed is dependent upon the scenario or win-condition you set. Most often, we played with a total of 7 allowed upgrades.

A ship’s strength can be seen visually by the number of sails it has, the hull; or, in the case of speed, whether or not it has flaming tail pipes. To keep it simple, there are pips - up to three to indicate the overall level of the ship. This is also true of cities - they have “health” - defenses and cannon, and the overall strength of a city can be seen either visually or simply by counting the pips.

Games typically last 5-15 minutes a piece (single or multiplayer); can be as few as two players or as many as 8; allow for 4 players locally (split screen!), 8 through LIVE/PSN; and can contain any combination of user/bot players you’d like. The single-player campaign is a series of 25 maps that initially teaches you how to use the interface, upgrade ships and cities, defeat merchant ships, use curses, plunder natives and cause general mayhem. The multiplayer is… fun.

More about Plunder

From: http://interplay.com/

See what has appeared on interplay.com

hey, I can dream

More about Descent

From: http://www.worthplaying.com/article.php?sid=49925

Not much info but I am just glad its happening :D

More about Disciples III: Renaissance

Thankfully I learned this a while back, from a colleague back in 2000.

He regularly told us stories of some extravagant surprises he’d be planning for his mom or his dad (or both). When people remarked on this, he replied that you must do things like this for your family while you can, because one day they’re not able anymore and you don’t want regrets, you want great memories.

For all he turned out to be a selfish back stabbing liar in many things, in this he had his heart and priorities in the right place. And I am glad it inspired me to do some trips and other things with both my parents.

Things like that become particularly important right now after I have had a chaotic 2 weeks due to the biggest scare yet with my mother’s health. It doesn’t matter that you have known for years that there was an incurable, deadly illness - when suddenly things get dramatically worse overnight you are not ready. You think you have prepared yourself to let go, but there you are, all day in a waiting room in a hospital, giving DNR instructions and seeing someone you love barely conscious, with lots of tubes and surrounded by beeping monitors… and you just want to scream, cry, pound a wall…

The crisis is over for now but it will happen again, and I won’t be any more ready for it.

So go on, spoil your family while you can.

It can be taking them away for a weekend, or cook them a meal, or just spend more time with them at home, or do something nice and helpful like repaint their house or help in their garden…

From: http://www.gamersinfo.net/articles/2055-depths-of-peril

Depths of Peril is a unique and addicting little game that I’ve played for many hours already and intend to keep on playing. Though the game could use more attention to detail - and a bit of filling out of world areas - as it stands, it is far from the typical static environments I find in so many games. The leveling and statistics are complex and interesting; it just keeps me always wanting to fool around more with it. One of the best elements of the game is the shear randomness. Maps, enemy types, quests, items, loot, locations, rewards, and difficulty all find ways to change each time you play, and even while you play. While Depths of Peril doesn’t seem to stand out in any area in particular, there is just something about the game that won’t let me stop playing. It is one of the rare cases where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. I hope the developers keep up their enthusiasm and expand their vision further.

More about Depths of Peril

This year I have decided to revisit old games, and as a part of this I tried to check how many games I actually have around…

I am planning to get them all in the database, but for now here’s the (not yet complete) list:

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