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Published by: Stardock Corporation, Inc. |
Sins of a Solar Empire - Game Review (PC)
By Emanuel Avram
Published: February 25, 2008
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To spice things up a bit, and similar to Master of Orion and Pax Imperia for example, Sins of a Solar Empire introduces space Pirates. They always have a base somewhere and will attack the lowest bidder. Yes, you can instate a bounty on your enemy's head, and if it is higher than the one he has on you, they will probably attack him. Pirate attacks are very annoying and will start every 10-15 minutes or so.
The evil part is, even on easy, the computer will "outbid" you on the bounty when the timer is at 00:00 and you'll probably end up attacked by pirates anyway. Beginning of the end you ask? Not quite, but I will talk about the small annoying things a bit now...
First, you have no business comparing this to Homeworld, as I've seen in many other places. Totally different. Ship combat is more statistical and not so much action. You see ships, they fire each other but that's about it. Forget about fancy maneuvers or any micro management. You can even fool a whole fleet to follow one ship once they decide to attack it. There's no stopping them - except in death.
Plus, ships don't "do" 3 axis movements, the movement is completely 2D. If you order a ship to go back further away from the conflict, it will do a big loop forward, in front of all the enemy vessels, and then try to turn. Try, because it will almost certainly be destroyed. Plus they usually take out colony ships, which will make your life harder at first.
Second, vessels aren't that much different for each faction. Just the looks.
The thing is, as I see it, this game would have been really great if it were turn based. A bit lighter than Civilisation maybe, but an instant classic. Instead Ironclad chose a real time game. Realtime at this scale brings a lot of problems. In order to be able to manage everything as you expend further into the universe, game speed is very very very slow. I can't describe it properly in words, but if you check out a couple of videos you'll get the main idea. Keep in mind I played at the fastest speed setting I could find. Normal is a lot slower. Speed setting also has to be checked when creating a new game, because you can't change it afterwards.
Oh, and if you wait to have a big army and attack the pirates, think again. Look at my end-game video and see what kind of army they have...
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The stellar "Sins of a Solar Empire" hits our PCs with a unique interesting new combination of game genres and a few cool ideas that should draw the attention of quite a few strategy fans. The newcomer Ironclad Games managed the impossible and created a competitive title indeed. But aside from all the prays and high marks this game received overall, its approach on RTS and the mix of elements it brings, one can find some things that will bother a few players and that will eventually influence the grades of this review. Ok, let's take it from the top.
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| Sins of a Solar Empire - No.3 in UK charts June 25, 2008 The strategy title Sins of a Solar Empire, the best selling USA PC product, has hit number 3 in the UK PC Retail charts today – beating blockbuster games like "Alone in the Dark" and "Mass Effect".
[...] |
| Sins of a Solar Empire released in the UK June 23, 2008 The Games for Windows boxed version arrives on UK shelves this weekend in an exclusive gate fold Limited Edition box....
[...] |
| Sins of a Solar Empire releases 13th June 2008 in the UK June 4, 2008 Sins of a Solar Empire sold approx 100,000 copies over two months following its US release earlier this year and hit number one in the USA charts.
[...] |
| Sins of a solar empire trailer available May 14, 2008 Kalypso Media is pleased to release a teaser of the strategy title Sins
of a Solar Empire, the best selling USA PC product developed by
Ironclad Games.
[...] |
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