Amazing game play, takes a few to get used to the pace. Had to watch a youtube video on how to effectively start and dominate. First space civ game i have played to date and love it. Just wish there were more factions and random resources and planets.
Not the best Space Civ game but it's up there, the amount of detail put into this game is unbelievable. Some may say that it's a slow paced uninteractive game but when you get to create your own galaxy/galaxy's and mod in your own ships you can have alot of fun, one problem with it is that the controls are a bit wonkey but you get the jist of it. The game is actually in 3D and not entirely flat and you dont have to have the grid on.
Solo Gameplay is well developed and random created map option make the playability last long. Interactivity with AI since diplomacy expansion make the game very interesting in Solo.
A lot of work on audio make the game very immersive, Music is purely wonderful. If you zoom enough to see the Graphic you will be amazed. That game don't really need so much detail but they did it so we take it.
Some said, their is no strategy in this. But they don't understand the way to play it. You don't even need a bigger army to win. Better fleet mobility can make you win, using mass offensive canon can make you win, build a strategic defensive base near sun can make you win, offering payment other players to attack your enemies can make you win, etc.
You can win by diplomacy, extermination with allied or not, or with culture!
Probably the reference for the space RTS 4X genre.
The only and main negative is the lack of multiplayer community. That why I did not give 10/10.
A third expansion coming soon, Rebellion! Hope multi will revive at his best!
Sins of the Solar empire is a game that tries to marriage RTS and oldschool X3 genres (Homeworld meets Galactic Empires) offering us battle micromanagement as well as ruling an empire. Unfortunately, devs forgot to put little thing called FUN into this mix.
GOOD THINGS
- The scale is epic with many planets and stars just waiting to be conquered
- Military and peaceful gamestyles are both equally well developed
BAD THINGS
- RTS element is a failure: There is no fun in battles in this game, you have close to zero ability to lead your troops, it's all about number of ships and specific ships countering each other, not frantic micromaganement like RTS should be
- Looks like a game developed not 5, not 10, but 15 YEARS AGO; the graphics are absolutely terrible and detract from the experience with ugly UI and overflowing pixels
- Annoying soundtrack that you want to turn off as soon as you start it
- It just lacks juicy stuff: gameplay quikcly gets bland and repetetive no matter how you play it
VERDICT
Instead of throwing up SOSE expansions that almost nobody play devs should finally learn how to develop a decent game. This probably worked well on paper, but it seems nobody really thought that idea through. No idea what is up with effects being so bad, but Homeworld 2 which is a 2002ish game looks and sounds way way better. They get 5/10 for making a totally run-of-the-mill X3 game that desperately screams "I'M SPECIAL !" while really is NOT.
Hmmm.... I struggled through 50 hours looking for the magic. It never happened. You know, once a game gets to the point where you hover over it, hesitating to start it up, you know all is lost. It certainly intrigued me to explore and look around in the initial games but it got very old, very quickly.
In essence, extend out as fast as you can, identify and secure chokepoints, hold until tech and resources build up, build a blob and win. Couple of losses needed to learn the AI and bingo. Too easy. Too simple and too slow. Not even going to bother with Rebellion.
No story line. Battles are all the same, playing few or many planets. No strategy is needed as the player with the most and biggest ships wins. Diplomacy or culture influence is not needed. For young and mentally less develop player. More a first person shooting than strategy game. Does not even come close to Homeworld, Nexus and other space strategy games.
A big manual with an interesting background story, some tutorials to be more confident with the "complexity" of the game ... and no story only skirmish missions (online or VS AI). Economical, social and trading dimensions are totally are useless and obfuscated by the endless battles, and the baddest point of all is obviously that trying to put some strategy in combats is nearly impossible : ships are slow (slloooow), maps can be huge, HUD design is not adapted ...in fact every battle looks the same and is solded by this equation : the alliance with the more ships on a battle wins, it's that simple. One the most frustrating point is eventually your capital ship (sort of mother-ships) that are firing thousands of lasers on a small frigate for some minutes to destroy it... in fact developpers should have called them bigerandmoreexpensiveships it would have been more appropriate. Techno trees are interesting but very complex and not easy to understand. So let's say that we are far from a space opera like X3, not even close to a civilisation-like and distant from a space strategy game like Homeworld ... in fact we are really far from a good game for 2010 (maybe in the 2000's for 10 bucks).
SummarySins of a Solar Empire - Trinity takes players through 25 years of warfare beginning with the real-time strategy game that started it all. In Sins of a Solar Empire, the independent Trader Worlds are forced to unite in order to defend themselves from the alien Vasari menace and the return of their exiled brethren, the Advent. The Entrenc...