Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Fantastic game from a fantastic DRM-FREE Publisher, 15 Nov 2008
Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars
Not only is this a great game (check out the reviews for it) it is also published by a company that respects its cash paying customers.
After reading the review, i decided i couldnt wait for UK release, so i bought online in the USA, downloaded it, then shortly after the DVD arrived in the post.
Its a very deep RTS, kinda like Homeworld 2 but more intense and more deep. If you like Homeworld 2 your gonna love this game.
On the subject of DRM... Stardock's policy is to sell its games without horrible SecureROM or other evil harmful malware/data mining software being included. It believes that its cash paying customers should be treated with respect as they want their customers to return in the future. It means there is nothing to stop you from copying the game, but why should we? It is reasonably priced, offers weeks of entertainment and their refreshing approach doesnt not knacker up your windows installation.. what is really sensible is that they believe that customers who have bought their games could have decided to go and steal the software online if they really wanted to.. so why treat them like criminals?
These people should be commended and because of their forward thinking policy, i hope this game becomes a bestseller on AMAZON and you guys support them by buying their products.
here's their "Gamers Bill of Rights"
1. Gamers shall have the right to return games that don't work with their computers for a full refund.
2. Gamers shall have the right to demand that games be released in a finished state.
3. Gamers shall have the right to expect meaningful updates after a game's release.
4. Gamers shall have the right to demand that download managers and updaters not force themselves to run or be forced to load in order to play a game.
5. Gamers shall have the right to expect that the minimum requirements for a game will mean that the game will play adequately on that computer.
6. Gamers shall have the right to expect that games won't install hidden drivers or other potentially harmful software without their consent.
7. Gamers shall have the right to re-download the latest versions of the games they own at any time.
8. Gamers shall have the right to not be treated as potential criminals by developers or publishers.
9. Gamers shall have the right to demand that a single-player game not force them to be connected to the Internet every time they wish to play.
10. Gamers shall have the right that games which are installed to the hard drive shall not require a CD/DVD to remain in the drive to play.
Well done Stardock - im looking forward to them publishing more major titles in the future.
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23 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Breadth of a Turnbased, with the excitement of Real Time, 7 Jun 2008
Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars
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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40 of 48 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Who needs a story, 17 Jun 2008
Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars
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:)
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