Sins Game Review Thread

One thread to hold them all!

Published on February 3, 2008 By lordkosc In Sins of a Solar Empire

Ok , after the 20 or so preview threads that were all over the darn place, I am making a single location where we can post all the reviews of the game for easy reference.

So once you find a review, post it in the following format:

I hope this will be made sticky by someone from SD.

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PC GAMER

91%

Editor's Choice

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GameSpot

WWW Link

9/10

Editor's Choice

*******************************************************************************************

Games for Windows

A-

Editor's Choice

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G4 X-Play

WWW Link

4/5

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IGN

WWW Link

8.9/10

Editors' Choice

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1up.com

WWW Link

8.5/10 Good

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Gamespy

WWW Link

4.5/5 GREAT!

Multiplayer Factor - Great!

*******************************************************************************************

Game Informer Magazine

WWW Link

9/10

*******************************************************************************************

Gamer 2.0

WWW Link

9/10

*******************************************************************************************

Game Shark

WWW Link

A- Great

*******************************************************************************************

Game Squad

WWW Link

9/10 GREAT!

*******************************************************************************************

Resonance Gaming

WWW Link

9/10 GREAT!

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Game Tap

WWW Link

9/10 Get It!

*******************************************************************************************
Out of Eight

WWW Link

8/8 GREAT!

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Game Daily

WWW Link

8.0 GOOD

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Shack News

WWW Link

Good:
# Patience-demanding strategy
# Endless possibility of scenarios
# Pew-pew lasers

Bad:
# No single-player campaign
# Steep learning curve

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UGO

WWW Link

A

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Game Almighty

WWW Link

9.0

*******************************************************************************************

GamesRadar

WWW Link

9/10

*******************************************************************************************

Gaming Steve

WWW Link

9/10

*******************************************************************************************

ArchGamer

WWW Link

8.5/10 Good

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Sarcastic Gamer

WWW Link

9/10 Great

*******************************************************************************************

Dual Analog

WWW Link

9/10 Great

*******************************************************************************************

PALGN

WWW Link

9/10

*******************************************************************************************

Game Valor

WWW Link

9/10

*******************************************************************************************

SyndicateX Gaming Portal

WWW Link

9.3/10

*******************************************************************************************

Cheat Code Central

WWW Link

4.8/5.0

*******************************************************************************************

ArsGeek

WWW Link

9.25/10

*******************************************************************************************

EuroGamer

WWW Link

9/10

*******************************************************************************************

Sci Fi

WWW Link

A+

*******************************************************************************************

Firing Squad

WWW Link

91%

Editor's Choice

*******************************************************************************************

Gaming Nexus

WWW Link

9.2/10

*******************************************************************************************

Computer Games

WWW Link

85/100

Silver Award

*******************************************************************************************

Gamepyre

WWW Link

95%

Gamers Choice Gold Award

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TGR

WWW Link

8/10

Editor's Choice Award

*******************************************************************************************

StratergyCore

WWW Link

8/10

///// UPDATED LIST as of 7/14/08

Comments (Page 15)

211

NukeDonkey2k

on Mar 24, 2008

Review on the GamingEh? blog. Complains about pacing of the game but nothing else. NSFW

GamingEh? SSE Review

212

heflys

on Mar 28, 2008

6/10 ROFL! Pretty amusing review, he actually complains about the lack of micromanagement during combat!
WWW Link

213

GI_Biochip

on Mar 28, 2008

PC Zone in the UK has awarded Sins 91%, and given it a Classic award, which is the highest it can get. Well done.

214

LinkesAuge

on Mar 29, 2008

Gamestar, together with PC Games the biggest pc gaming magazine in germany, gave Sins only 69 of 100 points.
Totaly redicilous, seems like they never heard about this game and let someone with no clue test it who thought it doesnt deserve a high rating cause its from a small company.
Seriously, someone of Stardock or Ironclad should contact them cause a bad rating in gamestar means a huge blow to Sins at the german market.

215

heflys

on Mar 29, 2008

I believe some of these sites are deliberately trying to give the game a low score in preparation for Starcraft 2....Who am I kidding, I'm just ranting.

Totaly redicilous, seems like they never heard about this game and let someone with no clue test it who thought it doesnt deserve a high rating cause its from a small company.

Doubt anyone really cares, about the review that is.

216

aRoobs

on Mar 29, 2008

Gamestar, together with PC Games the biggest pc gaming magazine in germany, gave Sins only 69 of 100 points.Totaly redicilous, seems like they never heard about this game and let someone with no clue test it who thought it doesnt deserve a high rating cause its from a small company.Seriously, someone of Stardock or Ironclad should contact them cause a bad rating in gamestar means a huge blow to Sins at the german market.

Don't get me started. I'll just bite my tongue here and check out what Gamestar *actually said about the game*.

Babelfish and my rusty high school German had a go at reading Gamestar's justification of their scoring for Sins, and the comments all seem pretty valid to me. This rough translation & paraphrase is likely wrong, but here goes:

Gamestar likes:

the graphics
strategic zoom
that empire tree doodad
the interface in general
the units
balanced multiplayer maps

Gamestar is not so keen on:

the atmosphere
the sound
generic diplomacy
little variety in scenarios
lack of campaign
lack of customisability in race & ships

This seems pretty fair to me. Consider: UFO enemy unknown (1993, XCOM to you north americans) and Master of Orion 2 are (1996) scifi strategy games that beat Sins hands down in the sound/atmosphere and replayability departments respectively. These are games 12 and 15 years old! It's fustrating that to date they remain in a class of their own. That said, Sins beats them in terms of interface, so at least we're making progress in some areas these days

217

heflys

on Mar 29, 2008

Lack of customisability, campaign, and variety in scenarios (what scenarios? the maps?), so the game gets 69%, eh? Like I said, who cares really.

218

aRoobs

on Mar 29, 2008

Eh. I care! I care about replayability. It's a value for money thing. Sins is a good game which I certainly don't regret buying, but I want more. My affection for sins has already faded a bit since I only really play single player (so hard to find the time to get friends together for a decent multiplayer romp) and there is little variety playing against the AI. Either you rush with a sova or some similar nonsense, you get ganged up on at the start, or you hold on until winning is a foregone conclusion, yet so drawn out in practice. Maybe I'll perk up again with the new patches. If the balance between some of the techs/units was improved I'd certainly enjoy being able to try some more varied strategies.

ps: I'd happily pay ironclad more money in return for some addon or sequel or something which added some more depth or breadth to the sinning experience! Maybe different flavours of each race (c&c generals style) and expanded diplomacy (I'd also like to see human and AI players have more symmetric diplomacy, but that's another story) and culture being a viable alternative and an espionage system. Maybe customisable super-capital ships for something fun to do in the endgame. Maybe rare planet types and specials that only pop up once in a blue moon, for a bit more of a focus on the Xploration. Maybe all ships could gain experience and become veterans with improved to hit chances or somesuch after surviving a number of engagements.

219

heflys

on Mar 29, 2008

Don't know all that relates to caring about a review score, but meh.

220

aRoobs

on Mar 29, 2008

Eh, maybe some miscommunication on my part. Don't really care about which url gives which number to which game. Do care about games I buy being enjoyable for a decent length of time. That better?

221

BossmanCG

on Apr 02, 2008

Hello everyone,

Us folks at ComputerGames.ro posted our review for Sins of Solar Empire last week, with the game scoring 85, as well as the Silver Award that goes with it

222

Chargolith

on Apr 02, 2008

I sorry, but I have to piss off the fan boys a little bit. This game is good, but not that good. I'd give it a 70%.

Why? Well, there's the obvious, no campaign. They do make up for it a little with a random map generator though.

Another problem is the complete lack of information about ships and the damage that they do to other ships. I shouldn't have to go online for basic information like this. For instance, I'm still not sure if weapon types have any effect whatsoever on anything. Auto-cannons, missiles, lasers....what do they do? Anything? Shouldn't they do something? Instead they went with some obscure, non-intuitive method for calculating weapon damage.

The rest of my gripes are more about my personal preferences. I don't think it's realistic to allow ships to travel all over the map right from the beginning. There's no satisfaction in instantly getting the most powerful ships in the game, seems to me like you should earn it. Tactical combat seems a little bland. Battles devolve into focus firing.

Where's all the crystal? I've played about 20 hours worth of sins and crystal seems to be in really short supply.

The fact that enemy fleets can fly right through your defenses irks me. I end up chasing them through jump points, picking off a couple ships, then chasing them again. Since ships in this game seem unusually tough, they can practically build new ships faster than you can destroy them.

I still like this game, and will get many more hours of fun out of it, but I still think it's over-rated.

223

heflys

on Apr 03, 2008

Sounds like you suck to me, I mean you have no crystal and you complain about ships being able to move freely because the a.i. is putting the smack down on you, but meh.....

Here is a new review from Game Revolutions A- = 91% (according to metacritic)

http://www.gamerevolution.com/review/pc/sins_of_a_solar_empire

224

heflys

on Apr 03, 2008

whoops!!

225

Barred

on Apr 03, 2008

Just to add a UK paper mag, PCZONE (Issue May 2003) has given Sins 91%.

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