Sins of a Solar Empire - First take

I hesitate to review any game that I have only played a short time. When I first heard that the guys over at Stardock were making another RTS game, I was excited. I LOVE Galactic Civilizations 2 (GalCiv 2 for short). Its almost like a remake of one of my favorite games ever, Master of Orion (MoO). MoO, and its resulting sequels, was another set of games released during the 90s by the fantastic guys and gals over at Microprose. Some of my favorite games growing up were done by them and I still mourn the loss of the company. Master of Magic may still be my favorite TBS ever made. I still hope to this day that some awesome company comes along and does an updated version of the game. That would rule.

Anyway, GalCiv 2 is a fucking amazing TBS/RTS game from Stardock. I heartily suggest you go to their website and pick up a digital copy or head to your big box game store and get the Gold Edition. Totally worth the money if you are into RTS/TBS games. The story missions are some what retarded but each time you play a custom map, its different. Just an amazing game.

So when I heard that Sins of a Solar Empire (SSE for short) was coming out, I quickly went and picked up a copy expecting more awesome from Stardock. My expectations, though, were far to high it seems. Though I have only played about 2 hours, the game looks to take fucking forever to play. There doesn't seem to be any real story that I can find and the game play is painfully slow. While there are some cool things in the game, such as being able to zoom in on a single ship or pan out to the entire galaxy, these little flashy touches don't make up for the agonizingly slow game play. As I said, 2 hours into a "small map" playing against 1 other computer player, I haven't done much. Maybe its from lack of experience playing, but damn. I have been bored out of my damn mind the entire time I have spent playing it. Its just silly how you seem to progress but really, you don't get anywhere. One thing I thought would be cool was the inclusion of a neutral 3rd party of Pirates. I was wrong. Pirates just get fucking annoying. They send large fleets of ships to attack you and if you are not keeping a bounty up on another group, they will come straight for you. My entire military, it seems, is used for the sole purpose of defending my planets against pirates. I made the choice of trying to take the pirates down and that was a mistake. With the military might the pirates have amassed at their home planet, taking them down is a mighty task, which I suppose is the purpose.

Now, there IS more tactics involved with the game than in GalCiv2. There are set transition points to and from each planet. As you expand your empire, you are able to set up defensive fronts for your territory. One space lane leading into your entire empire? No problem. Build up a defensive area and leave it that way till you expand further. Still, the highlight of every RTS is supposed to be the combat, and the combat here is boring as fuck. There are no real tactics once the fighting starts, you just sit back and let the ships blow each other up. Besides your Capital ships, none of your other ships gain exp and they are so cheap to build, and so quick to build, you don't care if you lose a bunch of them. Your fleet centers around your capital ships, the rest of it is just cannon fodder.

So, after a little play time, I am unimpressed. I will play it some more and give it more time but thus far, it wasnt worth the money I spent.