The Good: Additional
victory conditions, new units, rebel factions with unique research,
improved game balance, enhanced AI
The Not So Good: Not
worth it for previous owners, still no campaign
What say you? The
fantastic real-time 4X series continues with a standalone expansion
that doesn’t offer enough for veterans of the series:
I own previous Sins games: 4/8
I’ve never played Sins before:
7/8
MY POORLY WRITTEN INTRODUCTION
In 2008, a monumental game was released
that combined real-time strategy and 4X conventions. It was called:
Dora
the Explorer: Lost and Found Adventure. No, wait, it was Sins
of a Solar Empire. The inevitable expansions
followed the initial success, and now it’s time to keep the gravy
train moving, this time with a standalone expansion. Sins of a Solar
Empire: Rebellion adds rebellion to the sins that are in the solar
empire, introducing alternative factions, more ships, and additional
victory conditions. Is this $40 game a wise investment for newcomers
and veteran players alike?
GRAPHICS AND SOUND
Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion
purports improved shadows and lighting, but I didn’t really notice
them, to be honest. The game also gets an hour of new music and some
additional voice work, which is nice. I don’t think you could
reasonably expect much more from an expansion, especially when you
consider that Sins of a Solar Empire looked good to begin with.
ET AL.
As the general awesomeness of Sins
of a Solar Empire has been well established, this review
will focus solely on the improvements contained herein, as I think we
can safely assume that most discerning strategy gamers already have
some version of this game permanently installed on their hard drive.
So, on to the new stuff. First, Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion
introduces rebel factions for each of the game’s three races. The
rebels and the loyalists both have six unique research options
(clearly highlighted on the technology trees, to show that they are
shiny and new) that align with the backstory. I found most of the new
research options to be valuable, adding supplementary strategies to
each game. Also notable in Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion is new
victory conditions. Before, you had to align with all of the
remaining sides or opt for total conquest, but Rebellion gives you
more options for triumph. First, you can enable a single ship or home
planet that needs to be destroyed to eliminate a side; this makes
tedious clean-up a thing of the past, as you can quickly head towards
the capital when you have numerical superiority instead of having to
take out each and every enemy colony. There can also be a hostile,
neutral planet that can be captured and held for a win, or a tech
resides at the end of the civilian research tree that can grant
victory once you’ve researched fifty other technologies. This makes
Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion tend to move away from a pure
military focus and reward other approaches to the game. The new game
mechanics have produced two new tutorials, and Sins of a Solar
Empire: Rebellion requires Steam but allows for achievements and
cloud-based saving as a consolation. Both the faction-specific
research and additional victory conditions are fine additions to the
base game.
Each of the game’s (now) six factions
gets three new units: a corvette, a capital ship, and a titan. The
cheap corvettes allow for “zerg
rush”-type tactics, something that’s different (but not
necessarily effective if prepared) for the normally slow-paced game.
Each race also gets a new capital ship and the experience cap has
been increased to level four, enabling more specialized operations
for your largest ships. Finally, each faction gets a huge,
slow-moving, outrageously expensive Titan-class ship that requires multiple research steps and lots of money to build; personally, I would rather spend the resources on mobile
battleships (plus, Titans are fairly weak until they get
experienced-based upgrades). The new ships are typical new features
for an expansion and, while they do offer new options for players,
they do not significantly alter the general strategic approach to the
game. Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion also offers balance changes
and the AI has been taught to play the game with the additional
features; I was not able to exploit a specific strategy to
consistently defeat the AI, so it remains as strong as before
(especially on higher difficulty settings). Of course, playing up to
nine other humans online is the ultimate in competition.
Sins of a Solar Empire is generally a
streamlined 4X game, so only having a few new ships and techs aligns
with the theme of the series, but you could always want more. More
important than more, though, would be the addition of some meaningful
innovations to make the game play differently, something that
Rebellion lacks and would justify a standalone price. This would have
been an excellent time to add a story-driven campaign to the game,
highlighting the new rebel factions and why they broke away. But,
alas, the developers opted to keep skirmish-only battles, which
further reduces the value of Rebellion. Those who, for some unknown
reason, have not played Sins before should purchase this particular
version, as it provides the most well-rounded gameplay of any in the
series. But for veterans of the Sins games, it’s difficult to
recommend spending $40 on what’s included.
IN CLOSING
Is Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion a
good game? On its own, yes: it continues the highly-rated
strategy gaming of the original. But as a $40 expansion? No, as it
fails to provide enough content to justify a standalone price for
owners of the previous games in the series (even with a $10 pre-order
discount for owners of Trinity or the Diplomacy expansion). The most
important addition, I think, is the new victory conditions: no longer
do you have to ally with everyone or obliterate all comers, but you
can focus on research or defeating a specific neutral planet. There
are also quicker options for victory, like destroying a capital or
important ship; this makes end-game clean-up a lot easier. The rebel
factions introduce some unique research options that inject new
strategic choices, and the new ships give additional options for
composing your fleet. The AI has been updated to handle the new
features, and overall game balance has been improved. Still, Sins of
a Solar Empire: Rebellion certainly doesn’t bring any significant,
innovative changes to the formula (like a campaign, for instance),
which is I why I feel those who have already played a game in the
series can avoid this pricey expansion. I would rather see the game
cost half what it is, considering the improvements offered.
