Sins of a Solar Empire was originally released back in February 2008. During that year, it received many awards including "Best PC Game of the Year" by IGN. One year later, the first micro expansion was released called, Entrenched. Now Ironclad Games, the studio behind the game, is releasing the last micro expansion called, Democracy. Read more for the full review.
If you're new to the game like me, you can pick up the whole pack which is called Sins of a Solar Empire: Trinity. It includes the original game, the Entrenched and Democracy expansions, and will be priced at $40.
A New Genre
Sins is a RTX4 game. Put simply, RTX4 is a combination of real-time strategy with X4 depth. The four Xs refer to the standard gameplay elements of eXploring, eXpanding, eXploiting and eXterminating. The best example of an X4 game is Civilization. These games are almost always turn-based, have tremendous depth and a layed back pace. Real-time strategy on the other hand gets rid of the turn-based structure and tends to give action priority over depth. Sins of a Solar Empire aims to have the best of both worlds.
The Story or Lack Thereof
The game is set in the distant future where everybody is at war. That's basically the whole story and as far as it will go because no plot exists. There is no campaign, instead you jump straight into skirmish matches against AI or live players. The lack of a campaign is really disappointing, since you don't get to know what the three factions are about.
The Players
Sins features three races, which are very similar, especially in the early game before you upgrade them with research (and even then most of the upgrades are identical). The humans (TEC), the aliens (Vasari), and the sort-of-humans (Advent) all have the same basic set of ships, buildings, and research trees with minor alterations throughout. As with any strategy game, massive battles and cool looking fleets is what this game is about. There are three categories of ships: cruisers, frigates and capital ships. Frigates are the grunts of your fleet, good for soaking damage. Cruisers are heavier ships that are powerful and in large numbers and are the backbone of your fleet. Capitol ships are the biggest and baddest as well as very expensive, powerful and can determine whether you win or lose a battle. They also earn experience and level up which in turn, opens up new abilities.
In the beginning of each match, you start off with one planet and must explore your solar system in order to colonize other worlds and find resources which will be used to build fleets and research new technology. Planets are where battles happen and technologies are researched and fleets are formed. Everything else is just blank, unplayable space. Ships warp between planets along pre-established lanes, and planets are often only connected to one or two others, despite the fact that several maps contain dozens of them and that many planets share the same star. It’s hard to imagine and difficult for me to describe, so I decided to make a video explaining more in depth the mechanics behind the game.
A small 1vs1 player map with one planetary system (up to 15 planets) can take up several hours to finish , and I can’t even imagine how long it would take to finish a game on larger maps with 10 players and over 100 planets , but from what I've heard it could take a couple of months. Yes, months!
Arrrghh!!!
A very fun and unique feature in Sins is pirates. Pirates are a third party organization who will attack every 15 minutes and you can use them to wage war by placing bounties on heads of your enemies. This is done anonymously so nobody can tell where the money is coming from. If you can constantly outbid your opponents, the pirates can become your own personal mercenary army.
Mechanics, Graphics, and Sound
Instead of helplessly trying to explain how games core mechanics work I decided to make a video.
End Game
All in all, Sins of a Solar Empire is an absolute must-have if you enjoy strategy games. The game successfully finds the middle ground between difficult-to-learn 4X games and click-heavy RTS games. SoaSE gives you time to relax instead of constantly building stuff (like Command and Conquer), but you are still doing something (research, bounties, pirates, trade) most of the time, especially when your empire grows. So Sins of a Solar Empire actually pulled it off. It takes the best of real-time strategy games and 4X turn-based games and combines them with enough polish to produce an awesome title.
Final Score: 8.5/10
In Short
Pros:
- There's no hassle of micromanaging like in Civilization
- It's VERY addicting, it even stopped me from playing Mass Effect 2. I haven't had a decent amount of sleep in four days
- Multiplayer matches can be saved. Thank God, because they can go on forever
- It's not a twitch reflex game which leaves room for more actual strategy
Cons:
- The lack of a campaign really takes away from the game. Some people may not care about the story, but to me it's a big minus
- It has a steep learning curve. It will take at least 3-5 hours to "get" the game. With that said, I'm still having trouble defeating an easy AI
System Requirements: Minimum - Windows XP SP2/Vista/7, 1.8 GHz Single-Core Processor, 512 MB RAM (1 GB for Windows Vista), 128 MB DirectX 9 3D Video Card (Radeon 9600 / GeForce FX 6600 and above), DirectX 9.0c Compatible Sound Card, DVD-ROM Drive, 3 GB Hard Drive Space, Keyboard and Mouse, DirectX 9.0c, Broadband Connection Required for Internet Multiplayer, Impulse required for installation (of digital download) and updates.
Recommended - 2.2 GHz Dual- or Quad-Core Processor, 1 GB RAM (2 GB for Windows Vista), 256 MB DirectX 9 3D Video Card (Radeon X1600 / GeForce 7600 and above)
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written by David Simpson, February 14, 2010
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written by DirtySanchez, February 18, 2010
The online multiplayer part is where Sins really shines; playing it in single player against the AI just does not compare to playing it in 5v5 with human teammates and allied opponents (normally with pirates turned off and locked teams). Also, it takes much less time to play it online than what most people who only know the single player game would think. In an online game, the human players start out on equal footing with one another and the game is about strategy and tactics, including team strategy and teamwork, and not about fending off pirates or how much of an artificial economic buff the AI receives.
Contrary to popular belief, ONLINE MULTIPLAYER games really do NOT take forever to play. If you have 2 hours to watch a movie then you can play Sins online. Most of the games are 3v3, 4v4, or 5v5, which means that instead having to kill or purchase an alliance from 9 AI opponents, you only need to kill one opponent because your allies will match up against the other opponents. Also, in the online game it isn't necessary to kill every one of your opponents' planets. Once the outcome has been decided, the players on the losing team will call it "gg" (good game) and just quit or surrender so that you can start a new, fresh game. Online multiplayer games are more challenging, more intense, more suspenseful, more fun overall, and more fulfilling. The AI isn't bad as far as AI goes, but there's just no substitute for having a human intelligence behind the other players. Humans can surprise you and they can formulate a long-term game plan and have real teamwork.
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written by Mario Solorzano, May 05, 2010
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