RTS Again?

Its been quite a while since I've gotten real serious about an RTS game. The Civilization franchise has been a mainstay in my family since the original game. The latest - Civilization IV - I didn't really get into a whole lot. I purchased it and the first expansion mostly to play with my brother online, which ended up being a bust because no matter what we would try, we couldn't stay connected for more than a few minutes.

What I really like are sci-fi-based RTS games. Ten years ago I was playing the likes of Ascendancy and Deadlock. I got many, many hours of enjoyment out of both of those. I can still recall "screenshots" of both in my head, and think back to playing them on my parent's ancient Windows95 machines (Ascendancy ran in DOS, of all things).

Some of the huge RTS games of the last decade, however, I was never into. I never played the Warcraft games (pre-WoW), Starcraft, Command & Conquer and the like. By their very nature, I think these would probably be considered early "sandbox" games, they do allow you to do anything you want within the game world. However, for the most part, they have scenarios, or a story line, that you play through and you have to achieve certain "victory conditions" on any given map to progress the story. This is where I lose interest.

While it may seem odd coming from an RPG otaku, stories in RTS games played out through confined, pre-programed scenarios just don't interest me a whole lot. I suppose this is why I like Civilization and the aforementioned RTS game of the mid-90s that I played - you can create a map (or have one generated for you) and just play. You build up your civilization or your galactic empire and just go at it. You don't have to worry about a specific objective (although the ultimate objective is obvious), you don't have to worry about progressing a story, you can just explore, expand and enjoy doing whatever you want.

Given my past with RTS games, I was interested in, although a bit hesitant about, Sins of a Solar Empire when I saw it reviewed a few months back. On the surface, its basically a modern Ascendancy, but was there a "story mode" where you're confined to a certain set of restrictions and goals, or was it more of a true sandbox game, where you could create a map and do anything you wanted within it?

I'm happy to say its definitely the latter, as I purchased it this weekend and am now having a hard time pulling myself away from my PC. While there are some things I wish it had (more variety and customization, for one - I mean, Ascendancy has more variety than Sins, and it was released in 1995), its still a very engaging, "do anything and go anywhere" RTS. Its basically Civilization in space.

After playing it heavily this weekend, I started reminiscing back to both Ascendancy and Deadlock, which sparked the idea for this post. I'll likely have a full review of Sins of a Solar Empire in a few days.