I like retro games & I can not lie, you other brothers cant deny, that when a game loads up with a itty bitty intro & some big pixels in your face you get sprung! err anyway.. hello stalkers and lurkers! I'm Blake! I run a retro gaming page called Blake's Sanctum: blakessanctum.x10.mx I also have a blog at: blakessanctum.wordpress.com I'm the creator of Star Trek GZDoom mod, Quest for Glory IV 3D Hexen (GZDoom) mod, Civ1 Soundtrack Overhaul mod, ToT Graphics for Civ2MGE mod, Star Wars Civ2 Scenario, Heroes of Might & Magic Civ2 Scenario, Wonx's C&C Civ2 Scenario Remaster, and Red Alert 2 Siege of New York Civ2 Scenario. Also help out on other fan projects such as Starflight The Remaking of a Legend, and FreeCol opensource Colonization remake. ModDB & IndieDB pages for all these projects are on their way!

RSS Reviews
9

Heroes Chronicles - Fully Compability HDmod

Mod review

Very impressive.. you play Heroes Chrnicales as HoMM3 camapaigns with the HD mod and number of other benefits!!

10

Caster of Magic for Windows: Warlord

Mod review

Warlords changes many things in Caster of Magic 2 for Windows, some to feel more like classic Master of Magic again and some others are new things entirely. There's rebalanced wizard, races, units and spells along with 60 brand new units/creatures! So for those that maybe struggled a bit with CoM2's changes should definitely consider giving it another try with this great mod!

9

Fleet Ops: Roots

Mod review

The Root's mod is one of the best mods out there for the Armada 2 Fleet Operations mod (yes, a mod of a mod haha). Root's gives you a lot of stuff you love from Fleet Ops but brings back some of the great stuff that FO took out such as the Cardassians and the Romulan/Reman Scimitar. Many other new things have been added, everything's been reblanced, and there's been numerous other improvements in all areas. This new version 2.0 release includes a story campaign which is something a lot of us hoped would be added to regular FO one day but didn't happen. You can see me playing an older version of this mod at the 41:56 mark in the Fleet Operations tour video below:

10

FreeCol - Colonize the New World

Game review

I've known about the FreeCol project since the early 2000s but I'd never gotten around to trying it out as the ancient screenshots on their old website didn't exactly blow me away. But in 2018 I decided to finally have a go and omg did I underestimate just how awesome this fan remake of Sid Meier's Colonization really is.

I started a test game to see how it would go if I did a video and within a matter of minutes I was completely hooked. Before I knew it weeks had gone by and I'd barely worked, eaten or slept lol! I loved playing big long games with lots of cities and working with the Indians to ruin the other European nations in the original Colonization and sure enough FreeCol allowed me to do the same but even bigger and better! FreeCol comes with an insane amount of customization allowing you to create your dream game of Colonization. Almost everything you can think of can be changed and tinkered with eg the amount & friendliness of Indian villages, speed of immigration, how demanding your monarch is, requirements of founding fathers, the map generator, colony limits, where European ships start, game years, and even how much the AI cheats lol!

FreeCol comes with a bunch of awesome maps. There's a giant Americas map easily 3-4x the size of the original Americas map in Colonization along with awesome maps of Africa, Australia, and the Caribbean. There's an active fan community making even more maps and one fan has made a huge map collection including an amazing super earth map whose size defies belief!!! And if that's not enough the game comes with a map editor allowing you to modify existing maps, make your own maps, and even load your savegames to create your own maps and scenarios!

Why would I want to play a super-sized map when there are only 4 European players I hear you say? Well fear not for FreeCol has added 4 more European colonising nations to game (Russians, Swedish, Danish and Portuguese) which if combined with increased Indian nation sizes can allow some epic 8 player dream games of Colonization!!! In fact I've already suggested they add some more of the minor colonising nations so that a 12 player game is possible (which fans have now done in a cool mod!), as that would be perfect for the super earth map! FreeCol also supports multiplayer so if you've ever wanted to play a big multiplayer game of classic style Colonization with your friends then now is your chance!

There are numerous improvements to general gameplay in FreeCol as well. There are a whole selection of new advisors and improvements to existing advisors giving you all sorts of interesting information and options to help manage your growing empire. You can now click on Indian villages after visiting them and view what items they wish to trade, who they dislike the most and what skills they train which in Colonization normally could only be found out by constantly and annoyingly revisiting every village and speaking to the chief. Cities have build queues and training colonists is much better too as you can see who's training who and how many turns are left on each.
While the interface and backgrounds are not quite as pretty as the original Colonization, the terrain & unit graphics are awesome especially on the America map (I love the South American Amazon jungles and rivers). Back in the late 1990s when the 2.5D isometric Civilization 2 came out I wished so hard for high resolution 2.5D sequels to Colonization and Master of Magic but we never got them so in a way FreeCol feels like that sequel we never got and makes a good 'in-between' game for when you want to play something newer than the original Colonization but you don't want to play the modern Firaxis 3D remake Civilization 4 Colonization. If only someone would do this with Master of Magic!

Really the only thing missing is a soundtrack but that can be easily fixed by either putting your Colonization Win95 CD in and playing some tracks or hopping on to youtube. After all these years there is still a small team working on this project so if you're a Colonization fan I strongly recommend you download their latest WIP Build and hop over to their sourceforge forum to give them your support!

9

Bloom effect graphic improvement

Mod review

I can't even play Freelancer without this mod anymore as it hides a lot of the dated graphic issues and adds so much atmosphere to the game by enhancing and glowing all light sources while darkening other areas. Once working beautiful mod allowed me to create my Worlds of Freelancer HD ENB Video series a few years back which you can view here:

Part 1 - Liberty

Part 2 - Bretonia

Part 3 - Kusari

Part 4 - Rheinland

Part 5 - Hispania, Neutral, Pirate & Unknown

.

9

Mental Omega

Mod review

Truly one of the most amazing Red Alert and C&C related fan projects I've ever seen. Brings a whole new lease of life to one of my favourite games in the series (RA2). Their models look so good you'd think they were the original official ones, I love them! So much so I couldn't resist using some of them (with permission) in my Civilization 2 Red alert 2 Scenario I'm releasing soon.

9

Twisted Insurrection

Mod review

Truly one of the most amazing C&C related fan projects I've ever seen. Brings a whole new lease of life to one of my favourite games in the series (C&C 2). I really love their high quality recreations of C&C 1 units too. So much so I couldn't resist using some of them (with permission) in my Civilization 2 C&C Scenario I'm releasing soon.

9

Starflight - The Lost Colony

Game review

The only finished Starflight fan game in existence. It's a little rough around the edges in some parts but what Jon and his team acomplished is a truly amazing game.

I do Video review & tour of the game here:

9

Starflight: Heroes of Arth

Mod review

John's project is a great idea with a lot of potential! I can't wait to see the final product!!!

Main Menu screen Test:

Starport & Spaceman Test:

9

Babylon 5: I've Found Her - Danger & Opportunity

Game review

By far the most realistic Babylon 5 cockpit simulator out there. Other B5 games and mods are more arcade like or focus on other gameplay types/genres. This game also has great in-game cutscenes between the missions that really recreate that feel of the old TV show. With a bit of forced AA & AF applied the old graphics still look pretty darn good even today. I particularly recommend the 'Good guys' campaign.

Here's a tour video I made a few years back: