The Video Game Revue

Sins of a Solar Empire, Army of Two

I'd almost resolved to let this blog die, but I keep thinking of stuff to talk about. Maybe I should just admit to myself that nothing I have to say is very interesting. Anyway...

Sins of a Solar Empire is the best 4X game I've played since Master of Orion 2. The biggest thing that it lacks is the ability to design your own ships, which is a fan favourite feature of games like Master of Orion and Galactic Civilizations. Personally, I don't miss it all that much.

Other aspects of SoaSE, aka "Sins," resemble WarCraft III. Capital ships act like hero characters in that they gain experience and levels which lead to ability upgrades. Sins even uses the term "autocast" to refer to having abilities set to go off automatically, which is definitely WarCraft III terminology and seems anachronistic given that we're talking about spaceships consuming antimatter rather than spell casters consuming mana.

Fortunately, Sins lacks the frantic pace of a typical RTS. Individual units behave intelligently enough on their own to not need constant babysitting, and build queues are sophisticated enough that you can even queue something that requires, say, a tech that is still being researched. Every design decision is geared towards making the game playable at an immense scope (the smallest game maps involve six planets around a single star, while the largest involve over one-hundred planets in five different star systems) while allowing the player to enjoy the 4X nature of the game (exploration, development, epic fleet battles).

Sins also has multiplayer. I've read Galactic Civilizations: The Case for No Multiplayer and I'm not really convinced. Sure, I understand that multiplayer development takes a great deal of development effort to implement, and yes, I agree that a developer could potentially craft a better single-player experience by ditching multiplayer. But 4X games scream for multiplayer, especially in a game as close in form to Master of Orion as GalCiv is. At the very least they could develop a multiplayer version of GalCiv that lacks AI altogether. I'm pretty sure people would buy that. People have certainly bought Sins of a Solar Empire: 100k copies in two weeks, in fact.

On the shallow front, Sins doesn't have cutting edge graphics, but it does have a certain visual appeal that sci-fi fans will easily appreciate. I don't usually give a crap about audio, but Sins is an affront to my ears (awkward, repetitive verbal cues) and I prefer to play it while listening to something else entirely.

Army of Two is obviously EA's attempt to tap into the same market that holds Gears of War aloft. I haven't played Army of Two extensively, but it strikes me as the kind of game that would be better if it were a touch more respectable. Some of the tactical elements are satisfying and remind me of Full Spectrum Warrior. This element of the game is all but buried by the jockish thuggery of "pimped out" weapons (they seriously use the phrase "pimped out" in the weapon upgrades menu) and fist pounding. By comparison, the heroes in Gears of War seem down-right intellectual.

Still, the gameplay in Army of Two is surprisingly solid, and as a co-op FPS it has me hooked. I do have friends who will probably never play it with me because of its crass attitude, but I am pleasantly surprised by the overall quality of this game. It's likely to succeed in the marketplace, but unlikely to steal any thunder away from Gears of War 2. If anything it will probably serve to whet gamers appetites.

Finally, I'd like to mention Castlevania: Lament of Innocence, which is one of my series of cheap PS2 games being revisited. I'd heard many times that Lament of Innocence is awful, and it is. However, I'm also surprised by how close it is to being good.

The visuals are somewhat bad but, I think, good enough, and the soundtrack is good Castlevania material. Lament of Innocence seems to understand that exploration and combat are the soul of Castlevania, but somehow manages to screw both of these elements up to the point where the result is barely playable. Navigation and moving around the map is tedious, while combat is sluggish and quite frustrating. If this game had been some new and unknown franchise it would not seem so bad, but as a Castlevania fan this title is somehow insulting.

Lament of Innocence seems to get worse the more you play it. I'm about 20% through the game and I'm having a hard time continuing--basically, I can only bear to play the game when I'm feeling brain-dead and want to play something bland. In some ways, God Hand is a better game.

posted by Parappa @ 10:47 AM