Impulse Phase 2 Launches

Features and fixes are abound for Stardock’s digital distribution platform. Phase two of Impulse has been released today, bringing with it several new 2K Games to the service, albeit none that are new by any measure other than their release date on Impulse. Civilization III, Sid Meier’s Railroads!, Sid Meier’s Pirates! and Shattered Union comprise the almost-exclusively Sid Meier lovefest.

The new games are far from the focus, though. We reported last week on a preview of Phase 2 that Stardock CEO Brad Wardell had posted on his blog. Technical fixes, faster loading and download times, are among the changes that the update brings. Wardell also promised that we’d be seeing Achievements, the affiliates program, and the big v1.1 update to Sins of a Solar Empire soon after Phase 2’s release, so look for that (hopefully) in the next few weeks.

Stardock’s next major goal is Phase 3, but that’s much further out. It’s scheduled to release next February which, in the meantime, will leave Stardock to flesh out its third-party partners. Those who are using Impulse purely as a platform for gaming will expect to see far more than its current offering, particularly with something like Grand Theft Auto IV on the horizon. Going forward, that’s absolutely going to have to be a priority for Impulse, as it doesn’t have enough differentiating features to set it apart from Steam — yet.