Sins of a Solar Empire

In Sins of a Solar Empire, you take on the role of a fleet commander of one of three races, the TEC, the Advent or the Vasari, and you are charged with expanding the empire by any means necessary, through war or diplomacy, or both. To do this, you need to colonize other planets and build up your fleet so you can take on the bad guys, and with a practically limitless amount of ships at your disposal, this can be an interesting feat, choosing between sheer firepower, subterfuge or strategy, its all up to you, making the game different every time you play.

In multiplayer, all the players are placed in their own star system, and they have to work their way through their own system of 30+ planets so they can get the funding to research interstellar travel to get to, and destroy, the other players, making for an interesting game of fighting CPU then real people, giving everyone plenty of time to build up their own fleets.

The bounty system in the game allows you to pay credits to put prices on the people players heads, but be warned, this usually provokes an even larger price on your own head, and after about ten minutes the pirates attack whoever has the largest price on their head, allowing players to obliterate others without leaving the comfort of their own solar system.

In game their is a large black market, allowing players to buy resources, not only from the CPU, but other player, which allows you to make some extra cash while blowing others up, which, when coupled with all the other features of the game, makes for a wonderful gameplay experience.

Pros:

• Huge expanses for you to explore and conquer.
• Good multiplayer.
• Fleets are only limited by how good the computer you are playing on is.
• Huge research tree.
• Bounty allows you to put a price on other peoples heads.
• Black market allows you to purchase goods.
  

Cons:

• Pirate raids become quite tedious
  

Battlestar Gallactica

The game follows in the footsteps of the popular TV show, Battlestar Galactica, with each of the missions coinciding with an episode of the series, providing a storyline that is easy for the people who follow the TV show quite closely to understand, with cut scenes for the rest of us.
The on-line play, while you can only enjoy it if you have other players connected to your matches, the three different modes, including the all popular Deathmatch and Team Deathmatch, with a capture the flag mode, with a twist that you are capturing turrets, not flags, which then target the oppositions mothership, makes for an interesting on-line experience.

The game controls are easy enough, with arrow keys to move and space bar to fire, the controls are familiar to all the gamers out there, and easy to learn if you are new to the gaming community, and with unlimited machine guns and missiles, this game is good for if you want to just fly around destroying the Cylons.

Pros:

• Easy to play controls.
• Nice graphics.
• Good on-line play
  

Cons:

• Can't add AI players to on-line matches.
• Missions don't vary very much.
  

Ty the Tasmanian Tiger 2: Bush Rescue

In Ty the Tasmanian Tiger 2, the story picks up just after the point where the first game ended, with your character, Ty, starting up the Bush Rescue, with the help of his newly rescued family, to prevent Boss Cass and his goons stirring up any more trouble in the town of Barramudgee.
The game then sends our hero off on various odd jobs around the outback of Australia,some including a new Mech suit never seen before in the Ty series called Bunyips, and all providing interesting puzzles for you to solve.

While this game is centred around the younger gaming community and is therefore quite easy and short-lived for the older, more experienced players, it is still interesting to play, no matter what your age, and with smooth, cute graphics to really bring the environment and characters alive, and with such simple controls, it is possible for anyone to enjoy this game.

Pros:

• Cute graphics.
• Suitable for the entire family.
• Easy to understand controls and mission instructions.
• Fun for the entire family.
  

Cons:

• Game is to short and easy.

Deco Online

Deco is a MMORPG that combines cute graphic with easy controls and a large and helpful on-line community, allowing you to explore the expansive world and fight off the opposing clans in a party full of all your friends. The cute graphics requires a fast internet to run smoothly and efficiently or the computer will slow down, which is unfortunate because all of the people with older computers will miss out of the wonderful game play experience that is Deco.

The levelling system, like most MMORPGs, needs more exp to gain a level each time you advance, but the lack of new and exciting abilities in this particular game, makes the entire process of leveling slow and quite tedious. but you can be assured that sticking with it is definitely worth it.

For more information and downloads, visit Deco Online's homepage.

Pros:

• Cute graphics.
• Easy controls.
• Huge world and clan wars.
• Good on-line community.
  

Cons:

• Requires fast internet connection.
• Lack of new skills per level.

Spore

In Spore, you control a race of creatures as they make their way though genetic and technological evolution, from cell swimming through the primordial ooze to sentient rulers of the entire universe. the game play is easy to understand, with a tutorial just in case, with the choice between point and click and using the movement keys.

The game play in spore is a unique and wonderful new genre of game play that takes gaming to the next level, practically allowing the players to shape the universe for others as they progress through the game, and with an entire universe to populate with the weird and wonderful creations of the human mind, this is an ongoing task.

The game play is complimented by wonderful graphics that really brings the entire universe to life, giving an extremely colourful and vivid environments for your creations to come to come to life in and interact with. Each stage of the species evolution is completely different, making the game change whenever you advance higher up the evolutionary ladder.

Throughout the game every action you choose effects how your species develops and acts towards other creatures, and this makes the game different every time you play, which allows the game to be played again and again every single time, where the only limit to your game play experience is your imagination.

Pros:

• An entire galaxy at your fingertips.
• Wonderful graphics.
• Fully customizable creatures and vehicles.
• Galaxy populated by other players creatures.
• Ban option to get rid of inappropriate or unwanted objects.
• Customisable theme for your universe.
  

Cons:

• Some of the inappropriate creations can slip through to the game.
• Creators can sometimes be difficult to use.
  

Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast

In Jedi Outcast you take on the character of Kyle Katarn, a retired jedi who cut off his link to the force after almost turning to the dark side, but is forced to re-open the link when he and his partner, Jan Ors, uncover a secret saber crystal mining operation run by the dark jedi Desann and his apprentice Tavion. The rest of the game is centred around Karl re-learning his force abilities and rescuing his mercenary partner from the grasps of Tavion and Desann, and stopping Desann's secret mining operation.

The entire game, while lacking in the graphics department, has a long and involving storyline that has new developments throughout its course that keeps you guessing about what has happened after the last game ended and the new one began and also on which characters are bad and which are good. The controls are also easy to use after you get used to them, making the game easier to enjoy.

The graphics of the game show how old the game really is, but the levels are vast and some are rather intricate, which can cause frustration when a player gets lost or stuck in the larger levels. The campaign gets boring once you have played it more than once, but the multi player games are ever changing and always interesting.

Pros:

• A good first person shooter that combines the best of the force with the best of the shooter genre.
• Multi player matches provide good tournament play.
• Good storyline that lasts a long time plus good, long levels.

Cons:

• Graphics show how old the game really is.
• Joining internet games can be troublesome.
• Some unresolved glitches and bugs.
• All the controls can be hard to get used to.

Rise of Nations: Gold Edition

Rise of Nations provides good AoE game play with a new Conquer the World campaign which provides real time scenarios with a turn based world map, and with 5 different CtW campaigns to choose from, and each one changing depending on how you play and which race you are, the campaigns can last hours just trying to defeat the other nations.

The scenarios also provide something new to the AoE game play, and with the ability to fire cruise missiles, and also the more expensive nuclear missile, you can eliminate other cities from a great distance, but you have to be strategic as firing of too many causes a nuclear winter to kill off all players instantly, causing everyone to lose, which adds to realistic feel of the whole game.

The game also contains vast research and upgrades, starting in the ancient age and ending at the information age, which adds to the whole game play experience, and also adds nearly limitless combinations of race, strategy and research which stops the game from getting boring.

There is also a map editor which allows the player to create personalised scenarios to share in the multi player option of the game, allowing the player to create maps where the other player is surrounded by walls, restricting the expansion of the city, giving the creator an expansive advantage.

Pros:

• Conquer the World campaigns players hours of scenarios and missions which vary every time played.
• Computer AI is excellent, cowering when it should, and getting to big for their boots when they have the resources to start a war.
• All races have unique units, and are better at economic, defensive or offensive so you the game play is different for each of them.

Cons:

• Graphics leave a lot to be desired.
• The controls can be quite difficult to understand first time playing and the tutorial does not explain things in detail and therefore does not help the player to understand the game play very much
  

ParaWorld

In the game ParaWorld three scientists have found evidence of dinosaurs that dates within forty years and need a sponsor for their research. Naturally they go to the 'godfather' of research who agrees and they get sent spiralling into a parallel world of dinosaurs, intrigue, scheming and tribal rivalries...
Not the most original storyline, but the dinosaurs do make for a nice twist, but the tribes seem out of place in a nineteenth century world, but is later explained as colonies of England's cut-throats and thieves.

Game play is simple and easy to figure out if you have played AoE, but there is a tutorial if you cant figure something out, which makes for easy, well structured game play that provides hours of fun as you plough your way through the rather expansive campaigns and skirmishes provided for your entertainment.

Pros:

• Combines classic AoE game play with a twist of the Jurassic.
• 3 different play modes, for up to eight players in multi player matches in more than 20 different maps.
• Wonderful graphics for the Jurassic creatures to wander through.

Cons:

• Different tribes require different strategies to control, meaning you have to get used to each tribe and learn how to control each on effectively.