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Whenever I click the space to type text, I get this. I can just x it out and everything is fine, but it is a bit annoying.

Platform: PC
Developer: Ironclad
Publisher: Stardock Games
Game type: RTS

    I have recently been playing a lot of Sins of a Solar Empire. Sins of a Solar Empire is based around the player capturing planets and creating huge armies. First off, let me say the scale of the game is incredible. It is HUGE. The best thing about it is that with its enormous scale, it has more customizations than most RTS games. There are 3 factions to play as. The TEF, Advent, and Vasari. I am only familiar with TEF but each faction has a different look while keeping the game fairly even for the most part. Each factions has it's advantages and disadvantages. For example, the TEF has the least expensive ships and can gain the most powerful economy, but later in the game their military power is weak compared to the other two factions.   There are a ton of upgrades to purchase. Whether you want to upgrade a part of your civilian infrastructure or upgrade your military, there are tons of options for each. You can build ship factories and research labs in the gravity wells of your controlled planets. You need a certain number of research labs to gain access to certain technology. For example, you need three military labs to gain access to the Javelin LRM frigate. A planet can only support so many structures so it is important to expand your empire. you can upgrade your planet's civilian infrastructure, emergency shelters, and the number of building slots available. You also receive taxes from your controlled planets as well as from minerals you mine from asteroids. There are metal asteroids and crystal asteroids as well as credits, which serves as the main currency for the game. Certain buildings and ships cost certain credits and resources.


The Civilian Tech tree. Each tab has a tech tree like this.

    A very important aspect to this game is the ability to build ships and get into battles with opposing armies. You have a frigate factory, where all of your regular ships will be built. There are a wide variety of ships to make ranging from scout frigates to carrier cruisers. Then there are capital ships, which are more heavily armored and have all types of support options. You will notice their very large size. There are different types of capital ships that do different things. You can have carrier capital ships that are primarily used for support or capital ships that are heavily armed for direct combat. Each capital ship has certain abilities that you can get with points the ship receives from being in battle. You really want a diverse army to be able to take down an opponent. Among the three factions, each faction has a different names as well as model for each ship.


A Large scenario map.

    The game does have some sort of a story but it is told through a series of singleplayer scenarios that I never really tried out. The game does have multiplayer but average games take a LONG time so it is not the best thing to play multiplayer unless you have a large amount of time to commit to a game. I mainly just play single player skirmished. You can have up to 10 players in a game and can make teams to face off against each other. However, the alliance system is very flawed. When you create teams you start friendly with your teammate and hostile against the enemies. Players in the game will give you missions to do to gain respect from them, but if you do not do them, you lose respect. Each missions has a time limit and this is a problem because sometimes they give you impossible missions. I one had my ally give me a mission to destroy 10 civilian structures within the first five minutes of the game, which is an impossible task in the 20 "game" minutes it gives you. I ended up losing too much respect and he turned hostile against me.  You can lock the teams when you play, which gets rid of the need for missions but completely kills the diplomatic part of the game. It especially sucks with the new Diplomacy expansion pack which focuses around peace and the inclusion of a diplomatic victory, you must have the teams unlocked. You still get the impossible missions and it is very annoying. That is really my only big complaint about the game.


large battle I ended up losing.

    It is really difficult to explain everything about this game because there is just so much in it. It is an RTS that is not only focused on war, although that is a major part of the game. It has very deep tech trees on top of upgradeable units and planets. I have played the hell out of this game and it has yet to get boring or repetitive. It is one of those games where you says "let me just do this and I'll quit," but you never want to.


A very large fleet.

OVERALL
Graphics 9/10
Sound 9/10
Gameplay 9/10
Controls 9/10

TOTAL- 9/10

I really recommend people try this game, there is a free demo that gives you a fairly large amount of playing time.

WARNING- I will be comparing this game to Super Mario 64, if you haven't played Super Mario 64 I suggest you get off this site and go buy it.

STORY
Who am I kidding? It is the same as every other Mario game. Princess gets kidnapped and you have to go through Galaxies to rescue her.


GAMEPLAY
Same good old 3d platforming gameplay we saw in in the 3D Mario games since Super Mario 64. In some levels, it makes you play 2d, as in Super Mario Bros style gameplay. It usually only lasts part of a level though, never the whole thing. Here is the frustrating part, anyone remember how in Super Mario 64 you traveled through the castle to get to certain worlds? It has been like that in every 3D Mario game, until now. They have replaced the system with a very linear "select level" style system, probably in an attempt to make the game more user friendly. Also, remember how in Super Mario 64 you got to go to big areas where there were a lot of stars? Not any more. Now you go to a ton of small galaxies that have only 1-3 stars. The worst part is, they have made the game frustratingly linear. In the previous games, they would tell you the objective and you would have to go through a big level and find out what to do. So far in Super Mario Galaxy 2, I have yet to have to "search" for anything. Most of the stuff is just handed to you and you are shown where to go most of the time. The game is also VERY easy at this point, the same problem I have With Super Mario Galaxy 1. I remember having quite a bit of trouble on Super Mario 64 and Super Mario Sunshine. It seem they have made the Wii Mario games too easy.

CHARACTERS
We have our standard Mario characters, gommbas, koopas, mario, luigi, toads, dry bones, bullet bill, thwomp, bowser, peach, and a lot of others I cannot remember as of now.


GRAPHICS & SOUND
They are some of the best the Wii can offer. Smooth edges, colorful levels, excellent scenery. Truly a beautiful game. Super Mario Galaxy 2 sports the same great quality of music you come to expect in every 3D Mario game.


RE-PLAYABILITY
Despite the game being some what linear, there are a ton of stars to get (120 I believe). Playing through this game again would be just as fun as the first time through.


BOTTOM LINE
Graphics- 10
Sound- 9
Gameplay- 7
Replayability- 8
Overall- 8.5

Detroit, Michigan


As most of you know, I live about 30 minutes from Detroit. Downtown Detroit is beautiful. There is no trash, nice fountains, and nice people. you can walk around the city and always find great places to go. Downtown Detroit is very nice, but unfortunately that is where nice ends in Detroit.
If you dropped someone off in downtown Detroit who has never been there, they wouldn't know how bad it gets after downtown.

Downtown Detroit





As most of you know, and commonly joke about, Detroit is mostly a big shit hole. But if you have never seen it in person, you don't know how bad it really is. I had to drive through northeast Detroit on my way to Gross Point and it is a very sad sight, even from the highway. It completely ruined my day. I would love to go and take pictures myself, but the only concern I have is the obvious security issue. Unless I have a gun, I'm not walking around Detroit's east side. So I settled for some pictures from google.



It is quite sad seeing all of the abandoned buildings and factories that at one point, looked fine and had a ton of workers in them.




A lot of the areas in Detroit look like they would belong in Pripyat.



My grandpa grew up in Detroit and he always talks about how nice it used to be. It is just sad to think about how far the city fell and how bad it actually is now. Just seeing the buildings is enough for you to feel uncomfortable. I don't know why I posted this, I just felt like I should.

It seems that AMD is getting rid of its ATI brand in favor of a more central naming system. Future graphics card products will be under the name AMD Radeon and AMD FirePro. Not a big change, but it is bound to create some confusion. I say it is about time, carrying two names seems useless.

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/hardware/amd-to-retire-ati-branding/9514

These are the PC games I have gathers over the years. After realizing all of the money I wasted, I managed to snap a picture of them.


Digital Downloads
Battlefield Bad Company 2
Sins of a Solar Empire
Audiosurf
Pro Evolution Soccer 2010
Need For Speed Most Wanted
Diablo 2

I prefer to buy hard copies of my games. I downloaded those games because they were either on sale or I got them for free.

Remember when DICE promised that they were working on BF3 and that it will "blow us away"? Apparently they meant console owners. The limited edition of Medal of Honor is coming with a Battlefield 3 beta key, for PC, 360, and PS3. Well, looks like consoles got the best of DICE. I guess we won't see a true sequel to Battlefield 2.  :'(

http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/110/1109659p1.html