SunAge
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Publisher: Lighthouse Interactive Game Publishing Genre(s): Strategy Home Page: http://www.sunage-the-game.com/
A Beta Release By Any Other Name... Buildings and units may differ in name between factions, but are analogous in purpose It would be a disservice to not mention this up front: the release verison of SunAge - the version 1.0 code on the pressed CD - is an unqualified disaster. From frequent crashes to game-stopping scripting bugs to unculled debug code, SunAge has all of the issues you'd expect to find in untested beta software. Lighthouse Interactive may be a value publisher, but they're experienced enough to know that using customers as beta testers is not a way to build loyalty for a product. Vertex4 employees asserted in their own forums that development funds dried up and Lighthouse Interactive called for an immediate release, much to the detriment of the game. Generally, YouGamers evaluates release versions of games, with a look at fixes and additions in an addendum. If this were the case with SunAge, the review would end here, and the game would receive the lowest scores possible. Since the game is literally unplayable in its unpatched form, this review covers the latest release at the time of this writing, version 1.0.6.1. I often start a new RTS by opening the printed manual and firing up a quick skirmish game, but the only single-player option available in SunAge is Campaign mode. So, off to the campaign it was. Though there are three playable factions in the game - the human Federacy, alien Raak-Zun and robotic Sentinal - the campaign forces you on a predetermined path. Starting as the Federacy, there's a brief tutorial map which is intended to guide you through the basic controls and gameplay mechanics. It's quickly apparent, however, that the tutorial is a farce. A few scripted sequences designed to ease you into the game are instead confusing and, worst of all, easily breakable (my commander, for instance, was killed twice as I fumbled with the klunky interface). Along with the cursory printed manual, learning to build units and queue commands is a trial-and-error affair.
Repetition Is Not FunThis process of try, try, and try again repeats itself throughout the game. The camera is isometric, so there's no rotating, and zooming in and out is only a function of the minimap. Each mission is paced like a series of successive hiccups, with jarring plot exposition and seemingly random objectives. The tiered objective system would be better represented by a collapsible tree, but the delivered flat listing makes it difficult to peruse objectives at a glance.  The fog of war rendering is frustrating, requiring an unusual amount of attention just to keep enemies in sight Hotkeys are configurable, though this is a hit-or-miss affair, as commands would sometimes reset to defaults for no reason at all. And though commands can be strung together in bunches and queued, there's no way to get an overview of all current queues. Finally, the mini-map is one step away from useless, and there's no option to enlarge the tiny mini-map view window. After getting past the quirky interface, the gameplay quickly dissolves into more frustration. SunAge is the only RTS game I can think of that has a broken fog of war system. The fog of war is inconsistently applied and lifted; it's as if the game is haunted by ghosts that randomly decide which portions of the map to reveal and cover. Perhaps most unsettling are the missions themselves, which feel contrived and contain a number of rage-inducing scripting bugs. Actions which should trigger successful objective and scenario completion often don't, and the lopsided difficulty (even on "Easy" mode) ensures victory for the computer opponents nearly every time. Since failure comes frequently and often without warning, the game should have a decent checkpoint or auto-save system. This is not the case; unless you're thoughtful enough to frequently save your game, SunAge transports you to the very beginning of a scenario. After a couple of these complete restarts, it's necessary to walk away from the computer before inflicting physical damage on the keyboard. Worst of all, the difficulty is provided by bad scripting, which will ensure that you'll play a scenario many times before finding just the right combination of offensive and defensive moves that will lead to victory. Even then, the buggy scenarios may prevent you from achieving victory at all. Hope you remembered to save.
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