Sins of a Solar Empire | Not great, but a good start.

Sins of a Solar Empire | Nice space battling. A bit complex and impersonal.

pc & video games:

Sins of a Solar Em...

	Sins of a Solar Empire Windows \| Stardock, 2008 average customer review:based on 74 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Not great, but a good start.

First off, this game is not a "Master of Orion" style game in any way. It's far more comparable to Homeworld -- it's a space based RTS game.

Like most RTS games, the tech trees are fairly shallow with limited options and units are not customizable beyond researching new techs for them. There are three fairly similar races which are also not customizable.

However, it's not all bad news.

Although you'll likely be spending a lot of focus on overseeing large battles between fleets, there's also a lot of room to conduct secondary operations -- sending smaller strike teams out while the enemy is hopefully preoccupied with your main fleet. A lot of RTS games simply don't reward this sort of thing very well but in Sins, it opens up a lot of strategic options.

Multiplayer is integrated and well supported, including a feature that lets you save and resume multiplayer games. This is something that RTS gamers have been asking for for years.

Games can easily last several hours, depending on how many players and how big of a game you wanted. Personally, I enjoy the option of having a "big game" rather than simply the small map 15-minute skirmishes most RTS games offer.

The AI is pretty good and actually pretty amusing to have on your team. AIs will communicate with each other through standard chat and will try to coordinate with you and each other. (Enemy AI, on the other hand, tends to be annoying by making constant demands. This is the "diplomacy" aspect of the game and frankly it would probably be more fun without it.)

Graphics are very nice, should you choose to zoom in far enough to see them all, although the only reason to zoom in that far is to look at the graphics. It's generally more practical to be zoomed out far enough that ships are dots.

I think the bottom line for me is that I see this game as a good start. It's really nothing new. Real time space based empire games have been done before and arguably have been done better. However, I see this game as having a strong potential as a platform that they can build on. I don't regret my purchase but I'm more keenly interested in what they have in mind for Sins of a Solar Empire II. Deeper tech trees? More races? Customizable ships and races? There's a lot of room to expand and I hope they continue to build on it.

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Nice space battling. A bit complex and impersonal.

I don't buy a lot of games but I'm an real-time simulation addict. So, I expect a game to draw me in and be a lot of fun. I prefer PC games over console games because they're more interactive with the ability to use the keyboard and mouse. This game has delivered on what I expected of it very well.

Basically, this is a space-ship battling game between 3 different types of ship-making cultures. There's 10 or so smaller fighting vessels and half as many big cruiser battleships that upgrade with experience.

There's missiles and bombs and lasers and big explosions and great exploding sound effectss (forget real-world space physics already will ya?), and there's also the science fiction standby of psychics or psionics or whatever its supposed to be called here.

Some repetitive human voice acting adds to the effects but I think the description is misleading that this is about different races with historical cultures, blahditty-blah. You don't ever get the feeling that you are "talking" to anyone. Perhaps the online version is better, but I've not tried that aspect yet.

Okay, who cares. Let's blow some stuff up. And you do. Lots and lots of other ships and space platforms and equipment, etc. But pretty much you have just two goals -- takeover everything by blowing up the enemies, and use the galactic marketplace to get other enemies to stop attacking you and start attacking the same enemies you're attacking.

It's quite complex at first, and no matter what, it's very time consuming. But if you have an interest, there's a lot here that's enjoyable and rich in the audio-visual experience and abilities to create strategic manipulations. It's easy to lose, and difficult to walk away from this game for someone like me. I will likely sell it just because it's TOO consuming.

I would have appreciated something more about on the smaller side of the scale -- captains & crew with personal appeal or planets with cranky government officials or even a view from inside an individual ship. Maybe just making one particular ship THE lead Admiral or something. But really, all that's nitpicking -- it's plenty good as it is.

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Good RTS game

Not too much amazing staff inside the game.
But total the game software system compelte rate of this game is perfect.
Although not have fantastic history background, the game itself still proivde a lot of fun.
Comparing with HomeWorld the game battfiled scale is been enlarged. You need to go though several plant space system in one mission. The military factor been reduced and economic factor been enlarged. The battle control also been simplified.
The vision inside the game is also good.
Total I will say it is a good game and can be played whatever the time.

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A great game for RTS fans

Sins of a Solar Empire is a great game with a few tragic flaws.

The graphics are amazing- especially given the scope of the game. All the ships are well designed and have uniqe abilities. With the details set pretty high, they shine in the sunlight and generally look really good. The dynamic zoom is handy, and allows you to select any unit you want in about 1/2 sec. The empire tree on the left side of the screen is also a great way to manage the entire empire all at once. Resources are easy to understand and collect. Sins also adds culture to the mix. By building broadcast stations and spreading your influence, you can take over planets without bombing them to dust. As for the visuals, only the explosion and weapon effect detail leave something to be desired.

There is no single-player campaign, so if that's your thing, don't buy this game!

The random maps take A LONG TIME TO PLAY. My first game was a 14 planet (small) random map and it took me over 5 1/2 hour to complete. People have started games at the largest size (over 100 planets) and have been playing them as an ongoing project for months. If you like fast action and a flurry of clicking, this game is not for you. Sins is all about building a massive fleet and watching it obliterate everything- not frantically pressing special attacks.

The AI is decent, but nothing spectacular. Stardock is releasing upgrades to make the AI better. What's really annoying is that the computer players always seem to run from battle unless they have an overwhelming force. Also, there are space pirates who attack your empire on a regular basis. I find them really annoying, but they allow your capital ships to level up before facing another player.

Lastly, I have a pretty good laptop (Intel Core2Duo@2Ghz, 2gb RAM, NVidia 7300) and loading even a small map takes FOREVER. Literally, I start a map and walk away to do something else so I don't have to watch the bar inch across the screen. Once the game starts, it runs great though.

I gave this product 4/5 stars because 1)low effect detail 2)cowardly AI and 3)LOOONG load time

Overall, it's a great game I would recommend most to those who are into space RTS games, have a lot of free time, and like playing online.

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Nice try, but needs more

This is a pretty good game. I enjoyed playing this game, for about 2 to 3 weeks, then started to crave more from it.

Its got very simple gameplay, and this is fine to start with as you can get into the gameplay very quickly, but as you get into it you will start to want more depth, more umph if you like. Some variation would be nice.

Once you have learned how to do it. It doesnt matter how big the galaxy you are playing in or how many planets or apponants you have. Its still the same plod along game.

A little more depth and variation would have really made this a winner.

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