Over at Ranker.com we build an app that lets you list anything, listing the universe you might say. We have a few different ways for you to list, just like in gaming: we have solo lists, votable ‘opinion’ lists, multiplayer crowd-sourced lists and open free-for-all lists. Here I’m going to bring you a few of my own lists from the different categories.

Solo list where you can get opinionated

Here I’ve listed what I think are the top ten all time Star Wars games, feel free to vote me wrong!
The Top 10 Best Star Wars Video Games Of All Time

Multiplayer crowd-sourced list where you can get involved

This one is split into two pieces. First is the group list, where everyone’s lists are aggregated to show the crowds overall view. Here you can add your lists to help build the crowd view.
The Most Addictive Video Games of All Time

Then there’s my personal opinion about those most addictive lists.
The Most Addictive Video Games of All Time – by Yaypaul

Finally, Open World PVP lists

With open lists anyone can add items, so what I’ve done is start a special list just for this post. What you need to do is head to the list and add one (only one!) game which you consider the best video game of all time. With any luck the list will grow from everyone’s input. I’ll also turn on the voting options so if your game is already on the list you can vote for it and help it move up the rankings.
The Best Video Game Of All Time | Open List

Bonus list

Rate those polygons!
The Hottest Video Game Vixens Of All Time

The inspiration for todays ships comes from our own natural world of insects. Galactic Civilization II already has an insectoid species of course, that of the futuristic Thalan, but that races ships always seemed a little too future and not enough insect for my tastes. What would ships of an alien insectoid race look like if they too evolved into space fairing beings? That was my goal.

The vessels of the Insectoid Nation are sleek and beetle like. Most contain wings, either swept back or forward, depending on function. The largest of the navies ships are designed as fighter carriers, with their insectoid bodies extending out to hold the vast array of smaller ships they house. I had some fun naming these models too.
As usual you’ll need Galactic Civilizations II 2.0 with the Twilight of the Arnor expansion to use these templates in your games.

Download the GalCivII Insectoid Nation Fleet now!

Combat ships

Dart Fighter

Hive Massive Carrier

Javelin Carrier

Seeker Scout

Super Dart Heavy Fighter

Swarm Transport

Wraith Cruiser

Wyvern Battleship

 

Support ships

Aphid Colony ship

Ant Constructor

Cockroach Mining Ship

Millipede Freighter

Sometime ago I uploaded a set of ship templates based on the Imperial Battle Fleet of the awesome tabletop game Battle Fleet Gothic. While searching through the other custom ships I’ve committed to templates I found a related sister set, that of the Space Marines. The ships of the Emperors elite troops are large foreboding vessels, floating cities with thick armour and large forward guns.

This is a smaller set, containing only one ship from each size class, but the larger sized vessels have a substantial amount of parts. As usual you’ll need Galactic Civilizations II 2.0 with the Twilight of the Arnor expansion to use these templates in your games.

Download the GalGivII Space Marine Battle Fleet now!

Combat ships

Thunder Hawk Gunship

Nova Class Frigate

Hunter Destroyer

Strike Cruiser

Battle Barge Super Capital

Continuing the pyramid theme seemed appropriate, but sloped sides doesn’t really work for you in Sim City does it. In this map we’ll use something similar, a Mesopotamian Ziggurat. I’ve tried to make things interesting buy splitting the Ziggurat down it’s center between two large city zones. But that’s not all.

Ancient Ziggurat rarely came alone, each was part of a larger temple complex. I’ve included a number of other smaller structures, as well as some raised ritual pathways  and intricate water works.

You may also notice a similarity to an earlier anime style map I created, I was going for the same final result; a large metropolis sprawling above a heavily manicured foundation.

Download the Ziggurat region

I’ve not had any free time to actually play this map yet so there wont be an update to the Sim City 4 regions section for a while I suspect, but I definitely am going to play it. Feel free to stop by the comments and link to your region if you download and play the map. I’d especially like to compare city/region layout ideas.

Rather than an open park with some key theming –like last time, I’ve instead chosen to lay down some paths and basic transportation rides. You, as manager, are charged with renovating this old rundown temple into a full blown theme park.

The central feature of the custom map –as the name suggests– is a lost temple. I’ve built an Egyptian style pyramid with an enticing doorway for you to play with. Will you create stairs down into an underground complex, use it for a huge coaster dropping down into the depths or for some other purpose?

Leading up to the temple is a reflecting pool inset with ruined columns. Surrounding the temple and pool is a complex of stepped earth works for you to run coasters down around and through. Set high on the back wall is a huge waterfall to wow your visitors with. All in all I hope you’ll enjoy the possibilities presented at the Lost Temple.

Download the Lost Temple

Items in place

As I mentioned above I’ve laid down two small transportation rides. One is a small boat ride which runs from one side of the park to the other and the other a monorail which runs a short distance in shuttle shuttle mode.

The entrance to the park is also filled with the basic amenities you’ll need to help get your park off the ground, including those jumping fountains we all love to much.

I’ve not had time to actually play this park yet, the build phase has taken most of the free time I could muster. If you download and play the park I’d love to see your creations, be sure to comment or email with a link to some highlights!

More park previews

Six Bunnies Pirate Cove

For my next RCT3 map creation I wanted to open things up and give the appearance of more space – the actual maps are all the same size, large. To help give the feeling of space I’ve included some large cliffs where use of gravity for coasters could help extend run-times. The bottom half of the zone is a small cluster of islands, this opens up new water bound adventures and allows coasters to fly over water for an added feeling of speed.

Download Pirate Cove Empty path only park

Download Pirate Cover Full Rides and Attractions park

(download and unzip these files into your “Parks” folder)

The empty park has less pre-laid paths this time around as I wanted to give you a greater freedom for park evolution. Not one to leave you with a bare park I’ve included two scenery creations with the empty map. One large fort over-run by animatronic pirates rises out of a cliff out-cropping, paths snake throughout and pass close to ancient ruins. On the other side of the map there is a smaller pirate tower which overlooks a secret pool and waterfall.

Pirate Cove path only park

If you choose to download the full park from my own play session you can look forward to some interesting rides and even more colorful scenery than last time. A total of 12 rollercoasters, 9 thrill rides, a largely expanded pool complex and a host of other attractions to test drive, modify or rebuild. This time around I’ve taken much more time to build in the types of scenery you’d expect at a theme park, styled areas and structures around ride entrance/exits to name but a few. I particularly enjoy the Mine Train and Crows Nest Giga coasters.

Pirate Cove full park

Here’s a small selection of screen shots from around the Full Ride and Attractions park. Be sure to link to your own Rollercoaster creations in the comments if you use this park!

Park Preview

In my previous outings with RCT3 I had simply played through the campaign challenges, this time I was going to crack open the sandbox mode and build some custom maps.

Six Bunnies Fluffy Mountain

I named my first custom park ‘Six Bunnies Fluffy Mountain’ as an homage to my new local Californian Theme Park. Here you’ll find a mountainous region complete with lake, custom waterfall and reflecting pool. The terrain transitions from rolling sand dunes to grassy plains, plains to jungle and jungle to snow-capped wasteland. Altogether you’ll have a large varied area to play with.

I’ve decided to make two downloads per map available. One will be mainly empty, only containing pre-placed paths. The other map will contain full rides and attractions from my play session for you to ride.

Download the Empty path only park

Download the Full Rides and Attractions park

(download and unzip these files into your “Parks” folder)

In the empty park I’ve started you off with with a central reflecting pool near the entrance, this pool feeds the stream which falls into the near by lake. Two main paths lead from the entrance along each side of the large central mountain. These paths eventually branch off in to dead ends. You’re all set to start building rides.

Empty path only park

If you choose to download the full park from my own play session you can look forward to some interesting rides and colorful scenery. A total of 8 rollercoasters, 12 thrill rides, a pool complex and a host of other attractions to test drive, modify or rebuild. I had extra fun building the scenery around the Rapids ride and the first ride built was the Wooden Coaster Tundra.

Full Ride and Attractions park

Here’s a small selection of screen shots from around the Full Ride and Attractions park. Be sure to link to your own Rollercoaster creations in the comments if you use this park!

Park Preview

Let us not underestimate that last sentence. This is an important step for the gaming community, not just for the Apple users but for all PC gamers. What Am I talking about? Competition. Having games created for and released only on one PC platform inevitably hurts the market as a whole. Think of how the console market would look like if the only one available was a Playstation. Now imagine if that one console maker released an update that gave you a bloated unusable interface and then forced all it’s game developers to create games for the platform because it was the only way to use new features.
The point I’m trying to make here is that we have choice and a competitive market with consoles. This isn’t even about games, it’s about people being able to use the system they feel most comfortable with.

The Apple platform is now as good as any PC for gaming, gone are the architecture differences of decades past. It’s about time game developers saw this market for the potential it has, but it’s up to us as gamers to help support Valve and any other companies that create games natively for the Mac. Supporting Valve now is an integral part of making this work. Why? Because you’ll not be finding any other large studios games on the Apple Steam platform for a while, at least I think. My guess is that the large publishers will be looking to Valves sales of it’s own Steam based games before making any decisions about bringing their ported or porting/creating games for the platform.

For the good of PC gaming itself, that is why we need to support Steam on Macs.

If you’ve not caught any of the hubbub on BoingBoing or seen any of the teaser images head over to the article Gallery: Valve tease Steam/Half-Life/Left 4 Dead for Macs, in style for a look see.

Update: There is an interesting article and discussion at rockspapershotgun.com where they also point out a list of already ported Mac games. Quite a few in that list so we may see more than just Valve games at launch, however I still think the big publishers will be looking at Steam sales to decide whether to make an Apple push themselves or not.

Update: I took a little break from posting to plan a wedding, in that time Valve have confirmed, beta’d and shipped Steam for Mac. In fact it’s currently installed and downloading Portal which Valve gave away for free with the release of the Mac platform. Here’s hoping other publishers see the value in our gamers too! To comment on the above update quickly: Valve have released a list of supported games at launch, hopefully we’ll see some more mainstream titles shortly. I’d love to have Dawn of War II or Valve’s own Half Life 2 on my OS X side.

This time I’ve decided to post my progress on the blog to give you the option of tagging along for the visual ride. Perhaps you’re not a gamer, not into Sci-Fi or simply want to comment on my choices or special moments and compare them to yours.

To follow the full visual progress head over to my xFire page for Mass Effect 2, bookmark it and check back for progress updates.

If however you’d rather just jump into this page and see the highlights once in a while bookmark this page and check back.

I’ll also be adding some info to my Gamer DNA page, head over there and follow me if it’s your preferred platform.

*Spoiler Alert*

From here on in it gets a little spoiler filled as the images you see may not have happened in your game yet – or at all depending on your choices. I may also reference outside information I’ve found out about certain choices or scenarios you’ll face/I have faced. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

Collector’s Edition Armor

Really nice shot of the Collector’s glowing eyes.

Poor old Normandy

Back to the Citadel

Nice to see some other areas of the Citadel, and their associated views.

The good stuff

Woooah that Whiskey made me drunk!

Tattooed Lady

First close up look at Jacks tattoos. That outfit looks a bit nippy for space though.

No Cable?

These colonists obviously lovers of Satellite TV.

Old friends

Hi Garus! It’s good to see the old faces from ME1. I love that Bioware has all these relationships planned out across all three games.  You can also see my shiny gold and red camo armor -this paragon deserves some bling!

The bad guys

I know your face now Mr bad guy! You kinda look like the dude from Independence Day though, shame about the type casting…

Yay Tali

Tali is by far my favorite character in Mass Effect, could well be all the mystery. Definitely have to play through twice now that she’s a romance option.

Amazing artwork

I loved the artwork in ME1, but they’ve really maxed out the detail in ME2. The following shot is just a random room you have to pass through to get from a to b in a mission. I was stopped in my tracks and had to take a screenshot, the small size doesn’t do it justice -head over to the xFire page and check out the natural view.

Similar rovers

I’m pulling this one out as it kind of fits in to the “looks-a-bit-like” category.  Seen Aliens the Special Edition? Then you might see a similarity here.

Ahh Illium

The Mass Effect series does a good job at feeling Epic, Illium doesn’t disappoint.

Old flames

Liara, my romance from the ME1 character I brought in, is very happy to see me. She is also another reason why the game is getting at least two plays; My main Shepard from ME1 would like to continue the relationship with Liara through to ME3 without any cheating consequences.
You can also see a shot of my shiny new -kind of scary looking, helmet in this image.

Charlies Angels

Drive core

Get lost in it’s swirls…

Tali’s trial

Where I verbally out maneuver the Admirals.

Hands in the air

Welcome

Wait a minute, that’s not soup!

Samara glows

Loving the new particle effect, they look great even on my older MacBookPro.

Model collection complete

I kept killing the fish…

Sofa fight

My gas giant

Reaper insides

You just know there’s some nasty stuff in here.

Crazy escape

I didn’t sign up for this shhhh….t

On the offensive

The collector base must be destroyed!

They what?

Not cool Mr Reapers not cool!

BOOM!

Must out run blast…

Oh crap

Now that’s just depressing. Bring it on though, I saved the Rachni in ME1, the Queen will come through!

You know what this means

And that’s it for the short image highlights of Reishika Shepard’s play through of Mess Effect 2. If you’d like to see the whole screenshot collection please head over to my ME2 xFire screenshots page.

Some time ago I created a number of maps which were built using just one shape. While these maps looked great in region view they weren’t exactly the best to play – One was very hard and expensive to build on, while the other was so open and easy it got a little boring in the end.

I had an interesting time making Island Nation a more natural map while balancing out some open areas for large cities. I decided I’d like to make another natural looking map but again limit myself to only using one shape to build all areas of the region. I also imposed a few more guidelines upon my design;

- Only circles can be used to make the map.
- – Further: only four sizes of circle at four different shades may be used (smaller > lighter [125px, 60px, 30px, 10px]).

- The map must contain;
- – Two rivers joining.
- – One island.
- – Geological activity (so I can have mountains on low land).

The region is made up of nine large size cities so you shouldn’t have any trouble getting some nice large populations growing. I hope there is just enough landscape variation that it makes things interesting and you get some good ideas for building different types of communities.

I should have some time over the holidays to update you with how my region is going after I’ve started a city in each area. I have still got that Deadly Furry Cute relaunch to finish too…

Download the New Eden Bay Area region now!

New Eden Bay Area terrain map

New Eden Bay Area region preview