SINS of a Solar Empire

by Andrew Kao on December 23rd, 2008 at 2:11 am EDT - 195 views

There are many rts strategy games out, but very few comes to my mind related to space. Starcraft franchise not included. When I usually think of space I usually think of wonderful views of the stars, spaceships the size of moons, and old memories of Jabba the Hutt. Yes all exciting to me. Sins of a Solar Empire is all that minus Jabba the Hutt, and minus the exciting part. Sins of a Solar empire combines a mix of galactic conquest, Homeworld, and something from Zim the space invaders.

Don’t get me wrong, from a graphics point of view Sins of a Solar Empire is top notch, and one can easily spend watching a gas planet for hours. Though you’d have be something short of a psychotic to actually enjoy doing that for that long. The graphics are amazing, stunning. The maneuvering around the entire game map is almost as smooth as ice. The battles are also enjoyable to watch, and the warm fuzzy feeling of watching explosions off the face of planets is evident. The camera allowing you zoom in and out of galaxies and fleets is probably the smoothest thing the game.

The tutorial overall explains the basics of the game, however fails to delve deeper in understanding exactly how to accomplish certain problems you run into, in single player. For example I spent several long minutes figuring out how to expand my fleet, by the time I figured out how, my homeworld was invaded and occupied by an arrogant gloating alien race.

Though the aspect of the game in which computer controlled characters taunt you is nothing really new, I’ve seen it done in many RTS games. The difference in Sins of a Solar Empire is the computer controlled races give you tasks to do, which if you accomplish this or not, raises or lowers how they feel about you. Raise it enough and you can establish trade an alliances, lower it enough and they’ll obviously hate you. Although this may add an element into the game, it’s more frustrating than it really should be. By the end of the game all my allies were enemies, since I failed to accomplish their impossible tasks of destroying entire races under ten minutes. In other incidents I took a nation that hated me completely gave them a bit of money and together we somehow ended up like how Britain and the United States are today, the bulldog back scratching Uncle Sam.

Another aspect of the game is placing bounties on other nations to allow space faring pirates to attack the individuals with the higher bounty. Although this seems exciting, somehow this made whoever was richest win early in the game, completely annihilating the need for any strategy. Late into the game, this system breaks since pirates go from largest fleet in the universe to,” I think they just attacked me a minute ago, I can’t tell.” Although now I think I’m being unfair on that aspect.

However, like most games out there, Sins of a Solar Empire promises more than it delivers. Ironclad stated that the game would feel expansive. However going through the game I noticed that I spent more time sitting at my own planets than actually exploring. Looking at my bustling desert planets for 4 hours was just as exciting as watching mold grow on shoes. I didn’t see much battling either, till a dreadfully long hour into the game, and even then it was a few ships versus a few ships. I’m sure it would’ve been more fun catching a bunch of ants and watching them tear each other to shreds, you could probably have more fun laughing at the ants than you can have laughing at a few chunks of metal.

There also seems to be a lack of single player campaign. Although Ironclad stated that this was to allow the players to control the story. With Ironclad promising some epic game, without including a campaign mode it’s like your best friend promising to take you to a party to get wasted, but ends up leaving you behind, then later comes back and slaps you in the face. In other words they were just plain lazy.

The Bottom Line

Sins of a Solar Empire overall isn’t totally bad, just below average, like when you remember you got that C- in high school math. Yeah that kind of average. I would recommend it, only if you were borrowing it to try for the weekend. Although it’s fair to say it’s average for an rts, although I know there is a very devoted fan group out there who would say otherwise. The only way I would actually dish out money for it is if I found it in the discount box labeled Frosted Cheerios.