Sins of the Solar Empire on X-PLAY

[Scott Tortorice]

Here's a preview of Sins of the Solar Empire via X-PLAY:


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I've been checking a few preview articles and videos and SotSE reminds me of a Total War and Stars! mix. If that is the case, this could be a good game. The only thing that concerns me is that the game seems to be heavily driven by fleet actions which can get to be something of a grind if it there isn't a lot of depth to the combat. The jury is still out on this one, but I am hoping that, at long last, we have a suitable successor to Stars!

[Scott Tortorice]

IGN had an interesting dev blog entry (http://blogs.ign.com/Stardock_Games/2008/02/01/79094/)on Sins. I found this interesting:

Sins of a Solar Empire is a strategy game. It's a real-time strategy for sure but its goal is to also appeal to as wide a range of gamers as possible. That means the game should be satisfying for grognards with older machines who would be perfectly happy if the game played with just icons on a grid all the way to users who have mega machines who want to see individual missiles shooting out of frigates in a huge epic Battlestar Galactica-like battle.

Wow. It's not everyday that a developer is concerned about grognards with their latest, mainstream title. Heck, how often do you even come across the term "grognard" coming from the mouth of a dev these days?

This might be a good sign for Sins.

I also found this to be an interesting point:

Now, in the case of Sins, the engine was designed from scratch to support a much wider range of hardware than is typical. Part of the reason for this was pretty straight forward - Stardock and Ironclad didn't want to have to upgrade everyone's machines to some monster setup to develop and test the game. But the bigger reason is this: Sales. Actual sales numbers of different games are not often reported. But there are ways of finding out within a reasonable margin of error how well a given game sold. The dirty secret of the PC game industry is that games with high hardware requirements don't sell nearly as well as games with more modest requirements. And as an indie, we need every gamer we can get. Don't let anyone fool you into thinking that there's necessarily some correlation between what gets covered in game magazines and how well that game actually has sold. Some of the biggest name PC games have with high hardware requirements have sold very low quantities on the PC. You just don't hear about it. And for us, our goal isn't to be the coolest developer. We want as many people as possible to buy our game.

[Scott Tortorice]

High praise from Tom Chick (Hey! I got it right, Jim! :laugh:)! From his blog (http://www.quartertothree.com/):

But one thing I've never done is put up a screenshot from a game I'm playing. That would be just...I dunno...stupid, right? Who would put up a screenshot of a game he's playing? Not me.

Until today. I've spent a lot of time admiring the graphics in Sins of a Solar Empire, which has a pace so stately and camera control so slick that you'll be frequently tapping the PrntScrn key.

He concludes with:

But unlike Warcraft 3, you can name them whatever you like. What you can't see here is the planet behind all this, as well as the phase jump inhibitor that will slow down any ships that attempt to jump out after they've jumped in. And that light in the back? That's God, shining his divine light on the coolest RTS of year. So what if it's only January yet.

Could this be the game to make me finally forget the glory of Stars! and the broken promise of Stars! Supernova? After reading a bunch of previews, however, I am getting more than a whiff of EVE as well. Stars! and EVE? That could be an awesome combo!

[Scott Tortorice]

X-Play has posted their review:

Space Pirates (http://www.g4tv.com/xplay/videos/20244/Sins_of_a_Solar_Empire_Review.html?videoCategory_k ey=1)

I take exception with the criticism that Sins lacks a campaign. I really don't understand what is so great about pre-made campaigns, especially when it comes to a wonderfully open-ended strategy game such as Sins. Do we need a cheesy, pre-canned story for every game?

However, I do completely agree with Adam's remark that Sins is so addictive that you find yourself looking up from your monitor at the clock that says its 5:30am and you can't figure out why you didn't go to bed last night. LOL! :laugh: Been there, done that!