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Sins Of A Solar Empire (PC) | 
 enlarge | From: Kalypso Media
Category: Video Games
List Price: £29.99
Buy New: £21.44
You Save: £8.55 (29%)
New (11) Used (4) from £18.00
Rating:  13 reviews
Platforms: Windows Xp, Windows Vista
Genre: fantasy-strategy-games
Media: DVD-ROM
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 7.4 x 5.5 x 0.9
EAN: 4260089411500
ASIN: B00195P6J0
Release Date: June 20, 2008
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
Condition: Brand New - SAMEDAY DESPATCH - Insured Delivery and 12 months Warranty
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| Customer Reviews:
 IN SPACE NO ONE CAN HEAR YOU END YOUR TURN... May 24, 2008
NeuroSplicer (Freeside, in Orbit)
56 out of 59 found this review helpful
This is an EXCELLENT game that takes the galaxy civilization games a clear step further. Open-ended like a new science-fiction world and played as a seat-of-your-pants RTS game, this is a very intelligent hybrid that I greatly enjoyed.
In effect, SINS is a successful blend of the wonderful GALACTIC CIVILIZATIONS and HOMEWORLD series, with a sprinkling of TOTAL WAR for good measure. This is NOT a turn-based civilization game, so expect a much faster pace. What this means is that while it maintains the characteristics of classic turn-based civilization games (exploration, expansion, exploitation and extermination), by relieving from the micromanagement tedium, it allows for an intense RealTime Strategy experience. Now, this probably may not appeal to turn-based purists, but I would advise an open mind: this is a good game.
This concept-blending is new, so expect a slow learning curve - it took me a number of ...false-starts to get the hang of it: after all, it plays like an RTS and (although simplified) it still has enough of turn-based features that need to be taken care of. The interface is simplified and informative at the same time, with info trees sliding out only when needed.
There are three different factions to choose from (financiers, technologists and psitecs) - yet, their differences focus mainly on research tree-branching and ship designs. What I did not like was that the ships of all three factions are effectively the same and their differences are only skin-deep. What I would have liked to find (and was disappointed to the point of withholding the 5th star for fun) was ship design and building! Remember how much fun was to design our own spaceships (from freighters to battleships) in GALACTIC CIVILIZATIONS II? Well, no such luck here. Let's hope they keep it in mind when the patch gets prepared.
Quick and constant exploration is not only encouraged by a necessity if one wants to survive - let alone win. Spaceships built within a solar system cannot travel beyond it, unless using "wormhole"-like singularities. This adds to realism but can stretch your finances to their breaking point - since only locally built ships can be used. Moreover, it makes really hard to locate the strategic points to either built defenses or focus an attack. The AI will constantly be bypassing your planning like the Maginot line - and leave you with such a French feeling...
The graphics (of all of backgrounds, planets and units) are very nicely done. I really liked the multiple afterburners tracing through space as a spaceship squadron was dopplering past my screen...And less-than-cutting-edge PC owners rejoice: even 4-5 years old systems can handle this game like a breeze!
What I truly appreciated was the realistic scale of things. Galaxies are much larger than star systems, which in turn are much larger than planets, which in turn are much larger than space stations...than spaceships and so on. How is this achieved? Excellent zooming!
SUPREME COMMANDER was the first game to introduce strategic zoom; however, SINS implements it much better and shows how it should had been done: from a galaxy to a single planet and to a single spaceship, zooming in or out firmly maintains the effectiveness of battle controls by grouping and simplifying the info-tiles as one zooms out. In SupCom, we had to chose between either discerning the units or moving ...info-tiles around the battlefield - not a bad first attempt, mind you. In SINS, one almost never looses perspective: ongoing battles, critical hotspots, or colony revolts are all easily identifiable in real-time.
On another note, SINS OF A SOLAR EMPIRE is a STARDOCK release which, yes, means their specialized installation utility. Nevertheless, this game hides no DRM or other intrusive security idiocy. It was released in early February in the US (from where I got my copy) and although it is not protected by anything more than its customers trust and honor, it NEVER LEFT THE BESTSELLER LIST EVER SINCE. That should be a lesson to other game publishers who insult their own customers with Limited Installations and draconian DRM.
Since trust and respect between a game publisher and its customers is a two-way street (and STARDOCK was willing to prove its friendship first), SINS deserves our support.
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!
Who needs a story June 17, 2008
Ivan Booth (UK)
19 out of 21 found this review helpful
This game doesnt.
Think about it - what does a campagn do...
Each mission gets you a new bit of tech
Makes the overall game artificially last longer
Thats about it .
This game doesnt need one - I played a small map last night for 5 hours.
The pace is just right.
The AI adapted to my strategies with apparent ease.
I remember one encouter :
I attacked a planet - the enemy fleet sat and watched untill the planatary defences had weakened my fleet - enemy ships were still entering the system - It then sent an attacking force to the nearest one of my planets and engaged my attack fleet.
It was sneaky!!!
I cant praise the gameply enough - I would call it elegant.
Simple to learn very dificult to master - like all the best games:)
Extremely deep RTS game May 26, 2008
L. W. Chew (UK)
16 out of 18 found this review helpful
I'm not a real fan of gargantuan space based 4X games such as Galactic Civilizations - a little too slow and usually festooned with complicated interfaces and menus within menus within menus within a drop down box!
But Sins bridges the gap between RTS games while maintaining a realistically slow pace that goes with being a galactic spanning strategy game. It really reminded me of that old classic Imperium Galactica II albeit without the ground based combat.
First of all the graphics are great, and the superzoom function is straight out of Supreme Commander (thats a good thing). The tutorial gives you decent foundations in the essentials of conquering the galaxy in order to start a few small games with the AI. I'm not really a fan of multiplayer gaming so I was disappointed with the apparent lack of a single player campaign - so far I've only played instant-action style maps of varying sizes with the AI. Nevertheless it can certainly suck you in as you construct a space-faring economy while researching technologies to build up a war fleet.
Sins also introduces key battleship units that level up with experience like the Hero characters in Warcraft III or commander units in Dawn of War. By the time your flagships (yes you can have mroe than one!) get to a high level they're pretty much nigh-on-invulnerable. Another unique concept it brings in is a non-player pirate faction. As part of the diplomacy mechanic you can put a bounty on any opposing player's head and they can do the same to you. The pirates then attack the player with the highest current bounty. Kinda like ebay with hitmen.
There are other features too such as a vast tech tree, several races to choose from and a simple black market economy.
Overall a very deep and satisfying game but it can take a while to get used to, and even a single game on a small map can take hours! 4 stars mainly because there is no real single player story-based campaign despite the intro movie setting the scene for a decent story (at least I haven't found it yet! - you'd think it would be a big button saying "Campaign" or something).
Good god this is hard work May 23, 2008
W. Nelson (UK)
4 out of 14 found this review helpful
If you survive the tutorial and make it into the game-proper then you'll be faced with an RTS that has 4X trappings. I have to re-iterate, this isn't a 4X game, no matter what you've heard.
It's an RTS game which has opted for some 4X shinies.
Unfortunately in order to make the RTS elements accessible they've slowed things down to the 4X pace. So it's a slow RTS with 4X trappings.
It's a good game and once you get into it you'll have fun playing the AI but don't be tempted to play online if you have any self-respect or at least until you've mastered the game.
Overall there are better RTS games with 4X elements and there are better 4X games with RTS elements.
I wish I could review this as an adequate 4X attempt but it's set itself up as so much more but failed to deliver what it promised.
Breadth of a Turnbased, with the excitement of Real Time June 7, 2008
D. A. Duncan
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
If you take one thing away from this review, it should be that if you like strategy games, you will like Sins of a Solar Empire. This game is more akin to civilisation / galactic civilisations than to C&C / starcraft games, it is not as frantic as C&C, but yet not as slow as a civ game.
The basic premise is that you take over as a the head of a space faring nation. There are only 3 races availible to you (one focused on economics, one on research, and the other on production), for each of the races the basic ships are very similar. You get a scout ship (fast, mobile, not going to last long in a dog fight), a small medium and large gun ship, a planetary assault ship, a command ship, and a race specific ship. These are fairly vanilla, the real meat of the space battles comes in the shape of the Capital Ships. Each race has a different set of these behemoths which look pretty spectacular. These act like hero units, like you would see in Warcraft III, and generally can give out a pounding and take one as well - nothing is quite as satisfying as destroying an enemies capital ship.
The game has a fairly basic base building mechanism. Basically you colonise planets, each planet has a certain amount of resources orbiting it in the form of asteroids. Also in the space around each planet you can build only so many buildings. The planets can also be upgraded to provide more tax, more defence against invasion, etc. Truth be told base building is not the focus of this game - it is merely a means to an end, with the end being war. However each race does get a set of orbital buildings that are different, including one super weapon for each race.
Diplomacy, sadly, is fairly weak in this game when compared to a turn based strategy (obviously most RTS's don't even have a diplomacy option), and a lot of the diplomacy amounts to either bribing someone not to attack you, or to put up a large bounty on an enemy. In the larger games, if you find yourself in a weak military position, but a strong economic one. Such as 3 or more nations ganging up on you, it can be very effective to put an extremely large bounty on the most powerful of your enemies and watching allies backstab each other to get their hands on such a lucrative bounty.
On the downside this game has basically no story (though there is apparently a story in the works, it does not come with the game at retail), and the only option is skirmishes (though a skirmish on the largest setting will take a very long time to complete, even on smaller maps it will be a matter of hours). However that is due to this game being more turn based in attitude than RTS - and truely who plays an RTS for the gripping story?
Again I will repeat, if you like strategy games, you will like sins of a solar empire.
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