Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Nothing kickstarts a grim Northern day quite like a bit of digital retail news. It’s the stuff that really gets my blood pumping and makes me realise how much I love this land called Interactive Entertaindom. You may remember that Impulse, the download service previously operated by Stardock, was purchased by Gamestop earlier this year. This led to some gnashing of teeth but the ski slopes of Hell remained out of commission.

Now, Sins of a Solar Empire has appeared on Steam, leading me to visibly flinch this morning as if reality had fallen out of joint. It hadn’t. Explanations below.

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Stardock might have broken a few hearts with the whole Elemental launch fiasco (for which they recently offered a remarkably earnest mea culpa), but it’s clear they’re still well aware what’s important. Specifically, an epic comeback for Sins of a Solar Empire, the space strategy game that got RPS’s hive-heart all a-flutter back in 2007. It is to return, in the form of standalone expansion pack Rebellion. Immediately standing out in the list of planned features is “New Titan-class ships: Massive warships for each race that dwarf capital ships, these deadly new monsters are capable of wiping out entire enemy fleets single-handedly.”

Massive. Dwarf. Deadly. Monsters. Single-handedly. These are all mighty promising words. These, truly, are words of space war.
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For the fourth game of Christmas my true blog gave to me…
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We know how much you love to conquer the universe. So with that in mind we’re delighted to be able to give away five copies of the excellent real-time interstellar space war strategy, Sins Of A Solar Empire. As you’ll recall from our previous discussions, this is a game that we’d definitely recommend people buying, so we’d triply recommend entering a competition to win a copy. Honestly, you might as well click through to the details.
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Good news for Europeans who are a bit wary around Digital Downloads – Stardock have announced that they’ve found someone with the good sense to bring Sins of a Solar Empire to retail in Europe, the Middle and Far East. Kudos to Kalypso Media for doing the decent thing and taking our money. The press release says that it’ll be for £29.99 (Or 39.99 Euro-poundies) and “will contain an additional bonus of six exclusive maps, a techtree poster and a comprehensive manual”. Late May/Early June is promised, though there’s no set date yet set. Until then, probably a good time to re-read our RPS Sins of a Solar Empire verdict. Yes.

[Thanks to Joachim for the heads up]

Kieron: Ready?
Jim: Ready.
Kieron: Okay. I stick on Mogwai Fears Satan, as it’s the most piece of SPACE WAR music I have to hand. And let’s consider Sins Of A Solar Empire, the game people are literally calling “Sins Of A Solar Empire”. It’s a Space-based RTS from some guys who we mainly know for Homeworld Cataclysm, published by the guys who made Gal Civ 2. As the lineage may suggest, it’s an enormous Space War game which mashes a load of Gal-Civ-esque elements into a more traditional RTS. I’ve played it since the Beta. What about you, Jim?
Jim: Hmm, well I tend to go for more Lustmord when in spacewar. I like that alien-thunder in the depths of space vibe, plus I’m secretly a goth from Manchester. Anyway, I’ve been playing the game since it arrived on my desk a few weeks ago.
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Excuse me if I whoop and perhaps punch the air, but I am uncharacteristically over-excited by the announcement that RPS’ favourite space RTS of the moment, the gigantic and enthralling Sins Of A Solar Empire, is going to get an expansion pack. Wired are the couriers of this splendid news:

While he couldn’t nail down a date for the expansion pack’s release, Mr. Wardell did mention that the expansion would include some much-requested features including a “full on campaign” mode as well as new playable factions.

We’ll be talking more about Sins this week, probably.

Just in time for the weekend, Stardock have released a Sins of a Solar Empire demo. Just over 38-Peggles in size, it includes the tutorials, a couple of pre-generated small maps and a randomly-generated medium one (Allowing up to two and three AI opponents respectively). Its’ limited to ninety minutes of play. Get it from here, and read my review and our interview with Ironclad to remind yourselves why you should give it a shot.

No jokes in an RPS post? I must be ill.

This’ll make you feel all fuzzy-warm inside. Sins Of A Solar Empire, Stardock’s mighty, but somewhat under-the-radar, space RTS, was the second-best selling PC game in February, according to omni-analysts NPD.

Yeah, we already knew it was doing well. Nonetheless, it looks really strange in there, coolly trumping all yer chart-mainstay Warcrafts and Simses and Orange Boxes – it’s like seeing Art Brut on Top of the Pops.

Stardock reckon that’s only half the story, as NPD doesn’t include digital downloads – which constitute “most sales of Sins of a Solar Empire thus far”, apparently – nor does it include copies bought in Walmart. “Unofficial tallies we’ve received internally put Sins at #1,” they say. Good work, those men.
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Eurogamer’s put up my review of Ironclad’s Space-epic RTS up on their fine organ. I start like this…

“The bits where you order a fleet of a hundred or so cruisers, frigates and capital ships to line up in an epic formation at the edge of a solar system, and jump simultaneously to a neighbouring solar system? Where dozens of portals open up, and your vessels accelerate through them trailing hyperbright lights? Wicked. When you get a mob of Siege Frigates in orbit above a populated world and giggle as the planet’s surface blossoms in what you have to presume to be nuclear detonations? Awesome. And when an enemy fleet appears in your solar system, and a dozen fighter and bomber wings take off, closing the distance to the incoming ships while your big boys ponderously manouevre to join in? Hell yeah!

It’s worthwhile to take a little time out to be shallow, because there’s going to be precious little opportunity for that as we go on.”

And then ramble on insensibly, as is my idiom. Our interview with Ironclad’s Blair Fraser and Stardock’s Brad Wardell can be still read over here. Oh – and expect a Sins Verdict at some point in the next few weeks.

Yesterday, the first big strategy game of the year slid out of its space-dock. Sins of a Solar Empire, which we’ve talked about previously (In short: Space Woo!) and will be reviewing shortly. But we need more! Born Journalistic Pirates, we boarded the celebratory cruise-vessel of Stardock and cornered Ironclad’s Producer and Lead Designer, Blair Fraser, and Stardock’s CEO and President Brad Wardell to prise away our desired booty. That is, talk about the game, their future plans and the surprising and somewhat disappointing reason why it doesn’t have a UK distributor yet…

That, and absolutely no more over-elaborate analogies beyond the cut.
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