easy to pick up and learn. It wont bring a revolution to games, but to put it shortly: its easy to get immersed in.
Trader Emergency Coalition (TEC) -which are Humans
Advent - which is a religious sect of humanity which was cast out long ago only to return and wage war with the TEC
Vasari-the alien race that the TEC were at war with before the Advent came
Though this game does have 3 races, they are almost exact mirrors of eac other in game play, in the way that they build close to the same things. The differences being the cost, names, and abilities of the capital ships. So its easy in the way that if you get the hang of one, you'll easily understand the other with just a few tweaks to figure out.
Story-N/A
Yeah that's right, this game has no real sense of story aside from the manual, the opening cinematic, and the website under the lore section there is nothing once you actually play the game that is story driven. That's right, no character development, no long cinematic's, no political/romantic/comedic/dramatic solid form of a story line. So its different from the traditional in the way that a single player campaign to learn all 3 races is not given. its pretty much load up and go straight to the game play. However there is a rumor that this could change with a patch/expansion, so this is subject to change.
Game play-8/10
Okay so minus a campaign or story, the game play is what needed to strive, and it did a great job of excelling at it. Now understand this game does not reinvent the wheel, nor is it Homeworld or C&C in space. The real thing that stands out is the relative ease of the game and how it can be picked up relatively fast to those new and old to RTS gaming. You start off with one planet in your control, and have to go out and colonize other planets and asteroids. Just like other RTS's you gather resources from metal and crystals extractors. The maps can range anywhere from a star with a few planets around it, to several starts with over a hundred planets to conquer. Now this is one of my gripes with the game: The games on the larger maps can take ages. However, some prefer this and take the opportunity to colonize sever planets, and create a thriving economy before going out and engaging with players.
Economy wise, this game can be frustrating in the way if you don't own enough planets, or if your spending the big bucks on expensive ships, you could feel a bit wondering where your money goes, and then overwhelmed by a player when went cheap and brought a horde of cheap ships to overwhelm you. Other times you'll find your self trying to choose which ship or planet structure you need to build immediately, or which research you need to get the upper hand, and with proper management of your economy you can either sow ease into it, or just try to rush into it leaving you with superior tech, but no cash flow to build it with.
Planets also have a role to play in the way that certain planets hold certain advantages. One is that some planets (like a terran planet) will give you more tax income due to it having a higher population, while the volcanic planets are relatively sparse in population but make up for it with materialistic gains such as metals or ore extractors having more to gain. Planets also have the disadvantage that you can only travel from planet to planet by way of a single lane, meaning that if a planet is being attacked, and its several planets away you need to jump planet by planet to get to it instead of directly to it. This is made up by the fact that if you create a planet that every ship needs to go through (choke point), then you'll be free to build your empire behind that planet, seeing that to get to your area you need to pass the choke point, and if the choke point is well defended it will be near impossible to pass it.
Now for the bread and butter for the majority of people: blowing stuff up. This game is notched full od ships to bash in your opponent, with the ability to upgrade the amount of ships you can control, its easy to see hundreds vs hundreds of ships locked in a battle of attrition. There are 3 types of ships:
Frigates-make up the majority of the fleets. these ships range from planetary bombers, long range fighter, scouters, colonizers, and the basic front line ships of battle.
Cruisers-The next level of ships, usually come in the forms of frontline support vessels, carrier ships, and frontline battleships that can take a pounding and hold its own versus several ships till help arrives.
Capital Ships-The flag ships of the game, these are the frontling ships that can devastate a planet, or take on several ships at once with relative ease. my only gripe with this is if it's a all powerful battle ship, shouldn't it be able to devastate frigates like a knife cutting butter, but w/e
Now with battle the true advantage is the advancement in tech tree. its easy to see a slightly outnumbered crew to win out thanks to there advancement in tech.
The final thing ill cover in game play is planet defense. other than having ships to defend it, a planet can have hangers that house fighters to defend it, or stationary cannons to repel attackers. These are handy on trips out trying to conquer other planets, and a player or pirates attack an unsuspecting planet. These defensive abilities sometimes work, in the way that a planet may cause someone to retreat but they wont totaly devistate opponents, and since after you send one force in a retreat to what what amount you need to over take it, the defenses can be overwhelmed. However they serve to kill time till you can grab a force go back and defend your attack when needed.
Graphics-8/10
The graphics are a bit lacking. The planets themselves are lacking in total overall detail, but its nice to be able to see the volcanic planet with a decent amount of detail, the terran and ice planet leave something to be desired.
The ships themselves are a bit underdone, while detailed somewhat well at the highest settings, the ships still look the same as most RTS's. However i can understand this seeing that if you bring your full force and your opponents bring the full force it can be a choppy lagfest, even on some of the better computers.
The better thing graphicaly are the many outliying strcutures placed outside your panet, zoomed in, the detail is apparent, and most all of these structures are well made.
Graphically, its somewhat suprising to see much activity at zoomed out to get a good look at the solar system you control. The zoom control it self being just right being able to zoom in to see those bullets or lazers fire across the battlefield, or to zoom out to see several star systems.
Music-7/10
at first it gives just the right tone for the game. with either the just basic relaxed tone of nothing realy going on in the planet, to the battle theme once you get into it. its easy to change music from zooming in to the nothing going on music on one planet, to zooming out then zooming into the planet where you and your oppenet are locked in a battle for a planet. the music is welomed by most as not being to load or annoying to realy bug or frustrate anyone. However the game music can become dull and repetative over time, but by then your either worried by a massing fleet, or just completly ignoring it by then to notice the music. Thought at first the games music is fine, it eventually feels like it lacks a true soundtrack like other games, however this is a common issue with most RTS's and can be over looked.
Online community- 5/10
What?! a bad score! and such a low one!! relax there is a reason why its so low. The big reason being in that for one the games online can take litterly hours on end to finish or to get to the peak of the conflict. Its hard enough to finish a game, and even then some people chose to hold back for ages to build up that juggernaught of an army to unleash, which if the settings are at low speeds to reaserch (which i have found sometimes people do this to get a more epic feel for the game) could take up some much time it could just frustrate people to leave games and find new ones. So the low score isnt so much because of the game play (although 3 or more full fleets on one planet can make a computer lag...badly), but its more due to peoples willingness to stay on and dedicate the time to finish the game. I can blame them, i got things to do to.
Overall-8/10
Sins might have some time issues, however its smaller issues can be ignore since the core gameplay mechanics are just so well put together that its easy to ignore. For an easy game that can be picked up and be understood relatively fast, its worth a pick up. If some day a patch or expansion is made to add a very good story (hopefully a good one), then this game can be an easy 8.5 or even a 9. Other then that, i recommend atleast takeing a look at the game for the vets of RTS's, and a good play around for the new people to get eased into the RTS gameplay.