I have to admit it's been awhile since I have played GalCiv2. I loved it all the way from Dread Lords through Twilight and spent many (many) long hours building empires and having a great time. Time went on and I played other games and life went on... Well late last year I heard that GalCiv3 was coming out and I got all excited and followed every bit of news as it was revealed.

After finally being able to become a founder, I loaded up the alpha last week and played the game a bit. The alpha was polished but I was like - "Huh this is just like GalCiv2." I mean I was playing and I was like... what is new? Aside from some new ways they were dealing with some management screens this was just as I remembered it. All the playable portions that were available all the way from the little ships plotting across the stars to the planet view and its improvements etc... I was like okay... it's still very early (and fun) but I don't see much difference here... So I played a few more times colonizing worlds and tinkering around.

Well after awhile I got the urge to do more and I was like - "What the hell, lemme install GalCiv2 and play with that for while..." So I loaded up my GameStop account and installed Dread Lords, Dark Avatar and Twilight of the Arnor. Keep in mind it has literally been years since I have played them.

After the installations I load up the game, watch the opening movie (which looked dated as I expected it would), configured my options/setting and started a new game...

The galaxy loads up and virtually instantly I am like HOLY CR**!!! I mean HOLY CR**!!! GalCiv2 is SOOOOOoooooo different! The developers at Stardock *were not kidding* when they said they tried to keep the feel and soul of the old game because that is exactly what they have (masterfully) done!

After playing GC2 again I have a one-thousand and tenfold new appreciation for what they are doing here! The new Alpha is so much more advanced than its predecessor but when I was playing the alpha initially it was so eerily much like I was playing GalCiv2 that I couldn't register the changes in my long term memory because they have completely captured the soul 110% of GalCiv2. It is really quite amazing! I mean even though GC2 was technically inferior - GC3 is how I remembered it. Bizarre.

I cannot wait for the coming months - if this is what they have done this early the finished game is going to be everything GalCiv2 was times 100.

If anyone feels like I did and also hasn't played GC2 in a long while - load it up and see for yourself. I am starstruck.

I am gonna go play more GalCiv3 now...