Sins of a Solar Empire
Preview
Can you forgive the sins of the past, and the present?
by Valpo
previewed on PC
Gameplay (cntd.)
Expanding your empire is not that easy however. Building a strong and advanced fleet is paramount if you want to conquer enemy holdings. Dominance is gained through carefully planned out expansion, research and production and you will never be able to neglect watching your back. Conquering other planets is completely done through space warfare; the game features no ground attack phase at all. While this may sound somewhat disappointing, it will actually give you time to concentrate on the space battles. Contrary to its turn-based peers, Sins of a Solar Empire is completely real-time and while you're trying to fight your little ground war, your space fleet might get decimated completely in the mean time.
Diplomacy promises to be extensive and complex, allowing you all the standard diplomatic options as well as undercover operations using spies and assassins to defeat your rivals. Yes, you read that right, assassins. One of the more intriguing features of diplomacy in Sins of a Solar Empire, is the ability to put bounties on other people, getting rid of them the oldfashioned way so to speak. It is also possible to hurt your enemy economically by for instance blockading their planets, keeping traders from going in or out. If your fleet is not big enough to defeat your enemies' in open battle, it may be possible to bankrupt him instead!
Revival
This title promises to have a solid and up to date graphical engine but will likely not blow anyone away. It does have some strong points that are worth highlighting though. One of these is the engine's ability to really give you a sense of distance and scale. A planet may look fairly small but other objects in its vicinity will give away that it's much bigger. As you get closer the planet will get bigger and, contrary to many games set in space, will get so huge that it can fill up your entire screen, leaving your ships tiny by comparison.
The space RTS genre is, after a several year slump, finally being resurrected this year by several upcoming games. Sins of a Solar Empire should be able to hold its own in this revival, providing post release support to adjust gameplay and content will be available. With its interesting combination of extensive storyline and varying diplomatic options, Sins of a Solar Empire will likely to carve its mark into the history of Space RTS titles and has the potential to shine above its competitors.
