Here is a copy. And like others have said, I am finding more and more reviews are adverstising $$$ based.
January 30, 2008 - We've already brought you numerous previews of Ironclad's upcoming real-time 4X game, Sins of a Solar Empire, but there are still a few nuggets left to reveal before the game ships. The beta 5 version we received offered numerous interface improvements and a chance to finally play as the new Advent race. We've been looking forward to this game for some time now, and now that we've had a chance to try out this more polished, more complete version, we're even more convinced that Stardock and Ironclad have a real winner on their hands.
The first thing to notice is that the interface has been cleaned up quite a bit. Overall, the whole presentation of the game is much more polished now, with better graphics for nearly every interface element. The buttons also have a real sense of softness and weight now, which makes you feel like you're really connected with the game. I know it sounds ridiculously nerdy to obsess over something as silly as the "feel" of the interface when you're interacting with it, but it makes such a difference in terms of comfort, particularly for those five-hour play sessions.
The real stars of the new interface are the revamped diplomacy and tech screens. The most recent diplomacy screen was nothing more than a simple (if colorful) excel sheet with columns for bounties and resource gifts. Now we've got a whole page dedicated to each race complete with relationship sliders and a host of diplomatic options to fine tune your standings with each race and keep track of their demands.
The two flow-chart that stood in for the tech trees last time around are also gone. Now we've got technologies broken down into their own sub-categories, available on different tech pages. There's also an entirely new page just for logistics research, which makes sense because it focuses more on the quantity of your forces rather than the strictly quality-focused options that you get from the military tree. Being able to dial straight in on the right trees for weapon improvements or new ships designs definitely saves time, particularly for new players. It's true that Dan and I had gotten used to knowing just where the specific techs we wanted were found on the old kitchen sink tree, but this one makes things so much clearer.
The developers have also added some cool new touches, like game-specific achievements. There are literally dozens of these so getting them all will be a mighty task for even the most die-hard Sins fan. We look at them as ways to identify and also challenge your own gameplay style. Frigate Killers simply ask you to eliminate 1000 frigates, which is bound to happen eventually. Others, like Fear of Icebergs, require you to win a game without using any capital ships at all, and will require a more focused effort on the part of the player. Others for maxing out fleet capacity, gifting huge amounts of cash, or finding all the artifacts will net you a nice little mention on the achievements page.
The new Advent race are perhaps my favorite race so far, mostly because they have such an interesting attitude and aesthetic. Their military and civic branches are labeled with the terms Hostility and Harmony, which says a lot about their dual personality. While they might seem like groovy, hippy types based on their Harmony and Communion labels, once you open up the Hostility branch of the tree, you'll find them every bit as warlike as the other races. And what's great is that they continue to use the same soothing feminine voice even when they're talking about your glorious military massacres. The Advent have a great visual style that fits nicely with the other two races we've already covered. Their sleek ships seem to cut right through space with plenty of glowy, shiny bits to keep those of you with attention problems suitably entranced.
But it's the way that the ships perform that really sets them apart. Rather than simply offering up lots of direct damage powers like the other races' ships, the ships of the Advent seem to have a much more indirect approach to combat. Sure, they still have the requisite carriers and anti-fighter frigates and battleships, but their main strength seems to be in the inventive powers and promotions for their late game ships.
While each of the races get support ships, the Advent are going to require a bit more original thinking on the part of the player in order to use them properly. Take the large Progenitor, for instance. It fulfills most of the typical capital ship roles (in other words, it's big and has some nice guns) but it's real role seems to be revealed by its ability to boost the shields of nearby friendly units and to spread sympathetic damage to the enemy. More impressively, it also has the awesome Resurrection power, which allows it to transfer the crew of a destroyed ship to another existing ship thereby raising the promotion level of the new ship. It might sound like a power with a limited cool factor, but being to turn ship losses into promotions for other ships in your fleet can definitely turn the tide of a battle.
These powers extend to nearly every other ship in the Advent fleet. From the cool shield projection power of the Guardian to the frigate-dominating power of the massive Rapture. The real trick here is to find out whether or not the Advent player can manage all of these abilities in real time once the battles start getting complicated. Since many of these powers are only available towards the upper end of the fleet and tech trees, there's also an issue of whether or not they can come into play soon enough to make the Advent competitive.
The gang at Stardock have assured us that there are even more improvements and surprises to be found in the final version of the game, so we can't wait to get our hands on it and see how it's all come together in the end. The game recently went gold, so it sounds like we won't have to wait long.
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