Stardock, the company that used to run it's own digital distribution service, is now releasing it's PC digital games onto other services, like Steam. You may know the digital distribution service as Impulse, which was recently purchased by Gamestop, who are attempting to make it into a substantial service like Steam or Desura. Read more about that here. The first game that Stardock has sent out into the world is Sins of a Solar Empire, which is now available on steam on sale for $15.  I really hope they are planning to release Elemental: War of Magic, Galactic Civilizations and Demigod onto other digital services.



For now they just have released Sins of a Solar Empire: Trinity, which contains all of the of the expansions and main game in one. I have to make a case for Sins of a Solar Empire for anyone who hasn't played it before, it is a splendid game. It is a space strategy game that came out in 2008 and has had three substantial expansions since then. The original game wasn't too balanced and leaned heavily on aggressive expansion, but it had many options for diplomacy and trade it just didn't flesh them out enough to compete with the strength of combat. With the three expansions: Entrenchment, Trinity and Diplomacy, the game became a lot more well rounded and it was finally possible to take any path other than military expansion. The game feels easy to play but it has a lot of depth to it and takes quite a long time to master. If you liked Homeworld, which everyone should like!, then you will definitely find a lot to enjoy in Sins of a Solar Empire. It is a space strategy on a grand scale that is highly customizable and full of options/factions. This game supports modding, multiplayer and co-op without sacrificing single player. They also have another expansion coming out called Rebellion, which doesn't have a release date, but looks to add a whole lot to the game as well.


Since Sins of a Solar Empire has been out a while already there is already some cool mods out for the game, like this Star Wars one. Ironclad, the developers, openly support modding and hosting many mods/maps on their website. Check out the game on the steam page and I cannot wait to see what else Stardock releases from it's Impulse vault. Thanks for reading, be back with more soon hopefully.
Sins Main Website: http://www.sinsofasolarempire.com/
Stardock Website: http://www.stardock.com/
Sins Steam Page: http://store.steampowered.com/app/



-Written by Sean Cargle