Well, I’m finally getting over the pneumonia, so I’m back on my feet and back at work.   But all in all that’s other news.

Sins of a Solar Empire came out a short time ago, I had heard it mentioned briefly in the past when it was in its conception phase, but a friend of mine that goes by name of Sheya Nera turned me on to the game by mentioning the magic word ‘Homeworld‘ and how it was similar but on a far grander scale. 

For those that aren’t familiar with it, Homeworld was a game by Sierra that was the first true-to-the-letter 3D RTS, set as part of a Space Opera theme, kind of an epic tale of a galaxy spanning empire that exiled a race to a spot so far off a time long ago, etc.   The game itself is fantasic and the storytelling on the first Homeworld installation was absolutely great and the game is not complicated very playable and takes a pretty direct and simplistic approach to research, combat, resource management - all this despite avoiding the rock-paper-scissors theory.  All in all, a great game.   Homeworld spawned to major ’sequels’, the third party made Cataclysm which was equally awesome as its predecessor, a great game altogether that tied things up nicely, did a good intro to the Kiith families and didn’t quite focus on the Sjet arm of the story (which more or less is the story you hear in the first game), and Homeworld 2 was… visually stunning but actually was a bit more disappointing than the first.   The gameplay had nice polish to it, but overall it didn’t feel as inspired in its storyline as Homeworld was.

Okay I took a detour there.   Back to Sins.   Sins has a distinct Homeworld feel to it at a first glance, and rightfully so.   Same basic method of visualizing the battlefield, similar interface.  However we go a big (huge, collosal) step up in complexity as you must now manage entire star systems as opposed to just your fleet and the enemy.  There’s resource management, a far more complex research system, culture and influence, and even black markets and bounty influence.  They’re pretty much all done as simple as possible, each part of the interface is pretty obvious, so it is not super complicated to get what you need to get done.

What it does suffer from is EXTENSIVE CLUTTER.  Since you have so many objects all over the place, the left quarter of your screen is almost perpetually filled with rows and lines of objects.   First time players will probably get overwhelmed pretty quick if you don’t know the icons by heart as they depict pretty much every single thing in stationary orbit around each planet and each star.  This means buildings, turrets, ships, resources etc will all show up as logistical data on the left.  I personally found it unbelievably confusing at first, and kind of distracting.  I tried my best to use it, but I only got what I feel to be about 10% of its usability down pat after 6 hours of play. 

Despite this, the game is lovely, being able to bribe pirate to attack enemy, or even completely dominate a planet owned by an opponent without so much as lifting a finger in combat is seriously entertaining.   The sounds are pertinent, the races are pretty cool and the music fits a galactic scale game.  HOWEVER do not buy this game if you’re expecting a single player mode.  THERE IS NO REAL SINGLE PLAYER STORY MODE in this game, while there is a single player ’skirmish’ mode, there was no effort whatsoever to depict a story of any kind the moment you are finished watching the game’s intro cinematic.  It seems to involve a veteran group from an old stellar war, decommissioned, and then recommissioned to go back to war to a new front since the standing army is busy with some conflict elsewhere…. AAAAAAND that’s pretty much it.

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…great…

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While disappointing, in that aspect, it’s still a very nice game!   I recommend it.

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