SunAge

As an RTS game, SunAge doesn’t take many risks. The game is extremely traditional, harking back to the times of StarCraft and Dark Reign, insofar as it retains a 2D sprite-based graphical presentation. However, nostalgic gamers will quickly discover that SunAge doesn’t really have the same kind of magic that was present in those games. The game lacks a lot of polish, and many issues like pathfinding and poor AI rear their ugly heads, making the experience a tough sell and in the crowded house that is the RTS genre, there are much better options available.

The game’s storyline is pretty standard fare for the genre. In the future, mankind is locked in a resource war with the Raak-Zun, a race of bloodthirsty mutants with the desire to wipe humanity off the planet. The storyline is told through narrated comic book-style panels.

Most of the gameplay falls into standard RTS-style fare, with the mechanics feeling quite similar to most titles in the genre. If you’ve played an RTS game made after 1995, chances are you’ll know your way around SunAge.

Things in SunAge start to go downhill pretty quickly. The game’s tutorial system holds your hand to a point through the opening areas, but more often than not the right event won’t be triggered to allow you to proceed for a while, leaving you to point and click around the screen until something kicks and lets you continue.

The AI also leaves a lot to be desired as pathfinding issues and general insipidness seems to strike all of the units with a vengeance. While lining them up into formations is done easily and feels well-executed, you will need to hold their hands and guide them basically every step of the way. They won’t attack an enemy unless you tell them to, and they’ll often take inefficient routes to get to their destination. All things considered, it’s a huge problem with the game and makes for some very frustrating situations.

The review build of the game was patched up to version 1.06, but there still seemed to be quite a lot of work that still needed to be done. The gameplay’s general lack of polish left most of it feeling unfinished, which is quite odd since it attempts to play out as a homage to games that were released over a decade ago. While the team does seem to be putting patches quickly and regularly, it could be a while until the game is at least as up to snuff as the developers want it.

Graphically, the game has no 3D effects whatsoever, and is firmly grounded as a 2D isometric strategy game composed of sprites. There are some things that look pretty cool, such as fog effects and a couple of other neat tricks that they weren’t capable of doing a decade ago. Still, there are negatives present, including small units that lack a lot of details, making the aesthetic decidedly a mixed bag.

The sound isn’t much better. The ambient score is decent and works well but the voice acting is pretty terrible and is more likely to put you to sleep than it is to immerse you into the game.

SunAge is a game with some potential, being a throwback to what was arguably the best period for the RTS genre. However, the game ultimately fails to be a compelling homage to the salad days of strategy games, and instead is an unpolished and frustrating endeavor.

Gameplay: 5.0
Pathfinding issues, AI woes, and a general lack of polish ultimately bring this game way down.

Graphics: 6.5
A 2D-sprite based strategy game, SunAge has some impressive effects here and there, but the lack of detail in the units keep it from looking too great.

Sound: 6.0
The ambient score sounds decent enough, but the voice acting is very weak.

Difficulty: Medium

Concept: 5.0
As an old-school homage, SunAge fails to deliver due to an uninteresting storyline and unpolished gameplay.

Multiplayer: 5.0
The experience is quite fluid (once you download the 1.06 patch, that is) but ultimately falls to the same AI issues as the single-player game.

Overall: 5.5
SunAge is an unpolished traditional RTS with a ho-hum storyline and numerous shortcomings, making it a tough sell, especially in the already crowded RTS genre.