Announcement

**007** · 12-12-2008, 03:22 AM

February 15, 2008 - There have been a handful of games in recent years that attempted to merge the strategic depth of the 4X genre with the tactical intensity of the RTS genre. Empire at War, Hegemonia, Sword of the Stars and even the venerable Imperium Galactica II, have each taken small steps towards creating the full-on, seamless union of an empire building game with real-time tactical combat, but they all tended to fall short in some major areas.

Thankfully, the gang at Ironclad Games decided to show everyone how it should be done. Their recent Sins of a Solar Empire has totally captivated us, ever since our first experience with the beta and we're happy to say that the final game is every bit as good as we expected. That's not to say it's without flaws, but it does so many things right that you'll barely notice the few things that it gets wrong.

<embed src='http://videomedia.ign.com/ev/ev.swf' flashvars='object_ID=775249&downloadURL=http://pcmovies.ign.com/pc/video/article/852/852775/sins_vid_review_flvlowwide.flv&allownetworking="al l"' type='application/x-shockwave-flash' width='433' height='360' ></embed>

Though we're calling this a 4X empire-style game, we should make clear that, like Destineer's Sword of the Stars, this is a game about war. Sure, you can engage in diplomacy, and sure you can spread your culture throughout the galaxy, and you can even leverage your economy to create conflicts between other players, but at the end of the day, all of those efforts are just designed to support your success in the massive fleet battles. Personally, we love it that way, because that's the approach we take in other empire-style games. Still, if you're a player who loves bloodless victories, this isn't the game for you.

In brief, Sins of a Solar Empire starts each player out on a single planet with a shipyard and a little bit of cash. Where you go from there is entirely up to you. You want to build facilities to harvest the resource nodes around your home planet and then start exploring around you to see if there are any other habitable planets around. And since there are other civilizations in your galaxy doing the same thing, you'd better be quick about it, and be ready to fight for control of the areas where the empires eventually meet up. Since the combat and travel in the game all takes place around these habitable locations, there are chokepoints to be exploited and dead-end arms of the galaxy that are the interstellar equivalent of Australia in Risk.

The three civilizations you can choose from -- Trader Emergency Coalition, Vasari Empire and the Advent -- each have their own personality, which is reflected in their overall aesthetic and technology trees. But this isn't a Starcraft style conflict where each side gets radically different technologies and units. For the most part, the three civilizations share similar ship types and civic improvements; they just call them different things. Still, there are some cool differences that will affect your play style. The Traders, for instance, can construct a planetary shield to protect them from bombardments. The Vasari have a number of ships that can suppress the mobility of their enemies. Learning the fine differences between the civilizations takes some time but it pays off in the long run.

Some people complain that the game doesn't have a single-player story campaign. While I certainly think that a storied campaign would help establish a clearer sense of who each of these races are, what they're capable of, and why they're fighting, the dynamic and unpredictable situations that arise out of the open-ended campaigns are much more engaging than any scripted scenario. I mean, no one complains that Civilization doesn't have a campaign, and I see Sins of a Solar Empire offers a similar, if less varied, approach. The one reason that I think a scripted campaign could have been included is to expand on the rather superficial tutorial.

One issue that I do have with the campaigns however is that even the shortest of games is likely to end with the player at the upper levels of development, both in terms of empire infrastructure and scientific research. Personally, it was a bit of a let down that your only decisions at the end of even a short game have to do with building ships and fighting. Having a little more room to research and build at the top of the game would go a ways towards making sure the player wasn't just playing it as an RTS for the last hour.

**007** · 12-12-2008, 03:23 AM

And like most 4X games, Sins of a Solar Empire suffers from late game drag, particularly on large maps. Eventually you'll reach a sort of tipping point where all your small efforts put you in a situation where you can't possibly lose. At that point, the last chapter of the game just involves you moving massive fleets in to smash planet after planet, with no real need to worry about tactics. It feels a bit like busy work at that point because there's not much an enemy can do once you've got that kind of superiority.

The ships are really well designed and we're glad to say that Ironclad didn't go with a simple rock-beats-paper approach to battle. Instead, each of the ships has to be measured in terms of its raw firepower versus its cost. It's basically a question of whether or not you want to put all your money into unlocking and building the larger ship types and building fewer of those, or spend some money researching improvements for cheaper ships and rely on their numbers to overwhelm the enemy. The smart commander tries to strike a balance between the two strategies, building a few high cost, high power ships and then screening them with smaller, more expendable ships that rely on their on their numbers for effectiveness. With that said, there are plenty of interesting special abilities for many of the larger ships, so you won't just be looking at lasers crisscrossing the screen all day.

The AI is a real challenge here, particularly on the harder difficulty level. They know how to leverage their assets in an intelligent manner and make the most of the opportunities before them. There are different personalities for each AI, though, so you may find yourself fighting against an aggressive opponent, while another rival simply hunkers down and tries to build their economy and coerce other players into attacking you.

As we said, there are other things to do here that aren't directly related to blasting enemy ships out of orbit, but they all tend to contribute to your overall war effort in a way that gives them a bit more focus. You can, for instance, use the extra cash in your economy to put a bounty on other civilizations, which encourages other civilizations to attack them. This is a particularly nasty tactic if your rival happens to be near the incredibly powerful pirate stronghold that is found on each map. These pirates have a massive armada and are only concerned with destroying all the things you worked so hard to achieve. If you can give them a few credits to turn their attention towards your enemies, then so much the better.

Much of Sins' success is due to the brilliant interface, which gives players awareness of numerous aspects of their empire. The Empire Management tab on the side of the screen is a fantastic tool that not only shows you how many structures there are around your planets, but also shows you the number and position of friendly and enemy fleets. It also allows players to quickly select planets to issue construction orders for ships and civic improvements. And since the whole thing is collapsible, you can see as much or as little of it as you want. The only real downside is that there are some orders that require manual placement of your structures, so that still requires jumping back and forth in the main view window.

Even in the main view window, all of your assets (and those of any enemies you can see) are rendered with small but easy to read icons that give you a great sense of where the action is. You can zoom in and out with ease, going from a god's eye view of the entire universe all the way down so close that you can see the brake lights on your fighters. Being able to switch back and forth so quickly and easily really makes it easy to keep an eye on the big picture and the small details at the same time. The only real complaint here is that it's incredibly inexact to issue orders in the tactical view. If you want to be an effective commander, you've got to direct your fleet movements from a greater distance.

**007** · 12-12-2008, 03:24 AM

Sins of a Solar Empire uses Ironclad's proprietary multiplayer matching service and, while we've found it to be a bit inelegant, it gets the job done. We've been playing multiplayer matches through the beta for months now and it's been pretty stable overall. Best of all, the game allows you to save your matches online, so you don't have to complete a week-long session in a single session.

We've been very impressed with the overall performance we've seen from this game's graphics engine, particularly so given the rapid shifts in scale that it requires. Going from the highest of highs to the lowest of lows is absolutely seamless, and the details on the ship models just seem to appear instantly. You can tell from the screens that the individual models are quite good when viewed in the extreme, but the game is just as beautiful at the other end of the scale.

In fact, the scale of objects is one of the more impressive aspects of the game's visual presentation. You can start by viewing a simple planet in the distance and, as you draw in closer to it, it begins to fill more of the screen and increase in detail. You'll notice a large capital ship just parked in orbit around it and you zoom in further still until you can see small engine trails zipping around the ship. Zoom in even farther and you'll see tiny fighters and bombers flitting around the capital ship like gnats. And the great thing is that you never lose any of the details or awareness of the larger objects when you get down to this level. It's really an extraordinary effect.

It's almost as extraordinary as the artists' decision to make space mostly black. It seems like ever since those first pictures came back from the Hubble telescope that game designers want to cover the inky blackness of space with huge orange and blue nebulae. Sins is mercifully free of such distractions.

Finally, the sound design in Sins of a Solar Empire works well enough to support the action. Some of the other editors think the voices are a bit cheesy, but I actually like the character and personality that have been built into the voices. When you hear that calm, feminine voice for the Advent, it says so much more about who they are as a civilization than any written description in the manual. The music and effects are also generally pretty good and go a long way towards setting the mood for the game.

Closing Comments
We used to have to get our tactical and strategic appetites filled by different games. Then some smart developers started putting the two experiences together in alternating phases. Finally someone's managed to get them both together as part of the same experience. Sins of a Solar Empire does this so well that you never really feel like you're playing separate parts of a single game; you just feel like you're playing a game that works on different levels simultaneously. The experience works so well because the graphics engine works beautifully and the interface is very slick and efficient.

The combat is genuinely rewarding and free from the rock-paper-scissors design of most games, which leaves the player free to focus on more sophisticated tactics. It's true that the game is specifically designed for players to make war on each other, so that might turn off some peace-minded 4Xers, but happily we don't fall into that category.

In other words, if you like awesome strategy games, then you'll love Sins of a Solar Empire.
IGN Ratings for Sins of a Solar Empire (PC)
Rating Description See Our Glorious Home Theater Setup!
out of 10 click here for ratings guideGet Ratings Information
9.0 Presentation
A great mix of real-time tactics and high-level empire play. Could use a bit more personality and variety among the civilzations.
8.5 Graphics
A slick engine that works at any scale with seamless transitions. Runs great but the effects are a little weak.
8.0 Sound
Good, if exaggerated, voice acting. Music and sound effects get the job done.
9.0 Gameplay
Gives the player lots of options and provides great situational awareness. The AI is challenging and space combat is rewarding.
9.0 Lasting Appeal
The larger games can last weeks and the dynamic campaign gives you plenty of reasons to come try it again.
8.9
Great OVERALL
(out of 10 / not an average)

Announcement

Sins of a Solar Empire Review

Sins of a Solar Empire Review

Comment

Comment

Comment