Island Dog's Articles In PC Gaming
August 2, 2008 by Island Dog
October 28, 2008 by Island Dog
I was playing The Political Machine 2008 and headed over to the Print Shop (found in the main menu).  The Print Shop in TPM lets you make your own buttons, bumper stickers and bobble heads in a format that you can print yourself.  I used the character I created for myself to create some of the images shown below. The Print Shop allows you to take these images and print them, but you can also take a screenshot and use these images as forum si...
December 21, 2008 by Island Dog
GameStop now has open voting for the Best PC game of 2008, and Sins of a Solar Empire is a nominee!  Sins is also up for Strategy Game of the year as well.  Head over now and cast your vote for GOTY ‘08 at GameSpot. Link: GameSpot Game of the Year Voting Link: GameSpot Strategy Game of the Year Voting
December 16, 2008 by Island Dog
GameSpy.com has started publishing their 2008 Game of the Year Awards, and today they start off with the  PC category.  Both Sins of a Solar Empire and Galactic Civilizations II: Twilight of the Arnor were in the top 10!  It’s especially exciting as Galactic Civilizations II: Twilight of the Arnor won for 2008 PC Strategy Game of the Year! “Thus the genocidal Korath can quickly develop weapons of mass destruction but find diplomacy difficult while the mercanti...
December 15, 2008 by Island Dog
Voodoo Extreme has another vote going on for the 2008 Game of the Year.  There is quite list of games on there, but once again, Sins of a Solar Empire has been nominated and now it’s time to vote! Link: VE3D Game of the Year Voting
October 21, 2008 by Island Dog
Wired sits down with Craig and Blair Fraser, founders of IronClad Games, where they give a preview of the upcoming “micro-expansions” for Sins of a Solar Empire.  They cover a range of topics, and is a great in-depth interview. A quick excerpt: “This notion of “respect” has been a critical component in Stardock's success. From the lack of bundled copy protection to the Gamer's Bill of Rights, the publisher has sought to minimize the impact software pirates can have on sales b...
January 27, 2009 by Island Dog
Wired.com has the latest info on Sins of a Solar Empire: Entrenchment.  Along with that, they also have some new screenshots I’m sure you will enjoy! Link: Wired.com
January 23, 2009 by Island Dog
We are well into 2009, but the PC game awards for 2008 have not stopped yet, but we aren’t complaining!  The latest news comes from Maximum PC which has published their top PC game awards for 2008, and Sins of a Solar Empire made the list. “Sure, it’s a 4X (eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, eXterminate) space-exploration RTS and plays a lot like a real-time version of the board game Risk, but it’s one of the most fun and engrossing multiplayer RTSes we’ve ever played. The real risk (in sp...
January 16, 2009 by Island Dog
Rockpapershotgun.com has an interview with Brad Wardell about Stardock’s upcoming title, Elemental: War of Magic.  The interview covers a few things, including a chat about user-generated content and more! “Brad Wardell: The in-game tools of Elemental are designed to let players create their own items, their own worlds, their own graphical elements to the world, their own creatures, their own races and pretty much anything else they might want to expand the game. They’re the same ...
January 2, 2009 by Island Dog
  The fine folks over at Gamers with Jobs has given Sins of a Solar Empire the award for Best PC Exclusive Game of the Year!  Not only that, Sins was also a runner up in the Game of the Year award.   Link: 2008 GWJ Community Game of the Year Awards “As a rule, we at Gamerswithjobs avoid putting together any kind of intenal Game of the Year awards, primarily because the debate over the value and standards of such a thing would result in bloodshed, assault c...
January 2, 2009 by Island Dog
To say that Sins of a Solar Empire had a great would be putting it mild, we had a FANTASTIC year!  The end of the year means gaming and tech sites/magazines publish their “best of” lists along with features like user picks, special spotlights, and all that good stuff. Over the last couple of weeks we have seen Sins of a Solar Empire just sweep through nominations and awards, and IronClad Games and Stardock just couldn’t be more pleased.  I thought today we would...
December 31, 2008 by Island Dog
The Best of 2008 lists keep rolling in, and Sins of a Solar Empire makes it into the Top 5 PC Games list from Gamasutra. “One of the year's great success stories was this space strategy title from Vancouver-based Ironclad Games, which put the small developer on the map and scored another hit for its increasingly influential publisher Stardock. Ostensibly a member of the "4X" genre of domination-oriented titles, Sins of a Solar Empire, with its explicit focus on battles and it...
December 29, 2008 by Island Dog
Softpedia.com has named Sins of a Solar Empire RTS of the year!  “In a way, it’s unfair to compare Sins of a Solar Empire, from Ironclad Games and Stardock, with the biggest real time strategy title released this year, Red Alert 3, from Electronic Arts and its Los Angeles Studios. They are very different games, with far apart settings, and target audiences that rarely mix. But Sins of a Solar Empire has something that the third installment of the Red Alert spin off from the Tiber...
December 17, 2008 by Island Dog
While Electronic Arts dominated the top selling list with Spore and the Sims expansions, Stardock found itself with the 6 th best selling PC game title of the year despite the fact that the game has no copy protection whatsoever.  Stardock has been a long-time proponent of focusing on increasing sales by rewarding customers with free after release updates instead of using invasive DRM to fight piracy.  Stardock’s Galactic Civilizations series began this trend with Ironclad&...
March 18, 2009 by Island Dog
Link: http://g4tv.com/xplay/reviews/1946/Sins-of-a-Solar-Empire-Entrenchment-Review.html “Entrenchment does add a few other, minor changes, like a new “quick start” mode that drops you in there with a colonized planet and a few ships at your disposal, and some re-organized elements in the tech tree. But, really this “micro-expansion” is just about adding those few new defensive abilities, abilities that really do spice up the game. Even if you are a purely offensive p...