Sins Of A Solar Empire: An exceptional sleeper sci-fi game

Sins Of A Solar Empire. Image / Supplied

One of the best sci-fi PC games for ages escaped under many people's radar in the last few months, probably because it appears to have be on sale by import order only.

Sins of a Solar Empire

(rated PG), a successful 4X real-time strategy, from Canadian developers Ironclad Game and Stardock Games, appeared on a couple of best-of overseas lists last year as the sleeper hit of the year and I spotted it the other day in JB Hi-Fi.

This daunting epic of a game must have been a challenge to pull off for the developers and indeed it first appears challenging with the vast number of ships and fleet options. I felt right at home after comparing the '

Homeworld

' feel of this game when first loaded.

The gameplay is designed around a fully strategic view of gameplay where the 4X comes into it - explore, expand, exploit, and exterminate. It's not that simple to manage everything so expect a few hours' learning curve before you feel comfortable running the war economy.

Watch one of the battles here:

Here are all the usual elements of a strategy game in a real time environment but the good news is you can engross yourself into space battles and the galaxy world without having to constantly check up on every small detail. There are automation options that let fleets sort things out without your constant micro-management.

You begin by controlling one planet and set off to explore the galaxies looking for worlds to colonise and gain resources of money, metal, and crystal while your scout ships watch for pirates and potential enemies.

There are six planet types and you need to scout them before you can safely colonise and find any hidden artefacts.

There are three classes of vessels - frigates, including nuclear-powered ones and missile carriers, big cruiser class vessels with fighters and bombers and the monstrous capital ships which you can customise for your race. Of course, you can always opt for trying the diplomatic route rather than outright war. Rogue pirates keep launching raids but if you have credits to increase the bounty on an opponent, this may divert them and influence whom they attack.

I was drawn by suggestions this was a must for fans of shows like

Babylon 5

. As a big fan of that TV series, this certainly has the feel of inter-galactic warfare with the tentative trade and truce negotiations and the diplomacy menu for maintaining alliance members.

The single-player campaign consists of 25 maps covering scenarios from one enemy and one solar system to multiple enemies and multiple star systems. There isn't a huge story in the game - you don't learn an awful lot about the three races which are the human-based Trader Emergency Coalition, exiled robotic humans The Advent and an alien race called the Vasari and they seem to have similar technology. Multiplayer allows 10 players online for furious battles.

The massive space battles, the delicate diplomacy and the elaborate sleek design including an intuitive interface means lots of late nights playing an exceptional game.

A couple of tips: You need IE7 before you can install the game and .net framework version 2.0 to play it. The download utility 'Impulse' will patch the game and take you to the online distribution system. It is always best to patch the game before you play. You can't play saved games if you install the patch after you're half way through the game.

Other things you'll find with the online distribution system released by Stardock for their game and software database: games such as

TheWitcher

,

Motogp 08

, and the

Shadowgrounds

;

Unreal

;

TitanQuest

; and

Europa Universalis

series.

There is now a micro-expansion called Entrenchment that you can

download here

if you cannot install the Impulse software and don't manage to find this game in any stores.

The game expansion costs USD $9.95 or about $19.85 NZD depending on the exchange rate and is 305.9 MB for download. The latest patch for Sins is 221.0 MB to download from Impulse. It also negates some of the bigger frustrations.

MadGamer rating: 8.5 / 10

Played any other games that seem to have missed some people's radar?