"This week Soren Johnson joins us to talk about the state of the strategy genre, working with gaming legends and what we should be looking out for in the future. Julian reveals his mail gaming roots and Shawn finds a way to compare Boom Blox and Sins of a Solar Empire."

Listen to the Podcast here:

http://www.gamerswithjobs.com/node/39114

Next Tuesday we'll be releasing the v1.05 update for Sins of a Solar Empire that should address many of the multiplayer issues some players have reported. This is a minor patch, however; more substantial updates will arrive with version 1.1.

v1.05 Changes:

• Fixed bug deallocating particle pool memory.
• Fixed cargo ship related crash caused when loading a saved game.
• Increased the maximum length of map description text. If the text is too long, it will no longer crash the game.
• AI missions no longer continue if a human player has taken over for them.
• AI controlled units will no longer still have AI-control if a human player has taken over for them.
• Fixed crash when attempting to toggle the autocast state for an uncontrollable ship/planet module.
• Fixed capturable resource mines from being considered damageable.
• Fixed sync error in multiplayer games caused by cannon autocast targetting.
• Fixed squad owner infocards to gracefully handle large numbers of squads (100+).
• Fixed crash if you run out of video memory when loading textures.
• Planet asteroid setup now uses TotalMaxResourcesAsteroids parameter again.
• Added two new maps: Melting Point and Ancient Gifts.
• ICO accounts will now be forced to logout if you attempt to login with the same account.
• Malice changed to fix CPU issues in the late game due to previous implementation of the ability. Malice now accumulates damage on affected targets and then spreads that damage when the buff expires, rather than spreading damage as soon as damage is applied. Its duration, cooldown and AM cost have all been reduced to reflect this. Malice is now target capped as well at 8/16/24 targets.
• Fixed bug in galaxy generator related to vertical planet offsets when planets are too close together.
• New default texture quality settings set.

It's been over three months since Sins of a Solar Empire hit store shelves, and soon it will be readily available at retail in Europe as well.  In the months since release, the reviews have continued to trickle in one at a time here and there.  Today, I have a quick round-up of a few of the most recent reviews posted for Sins.  Overall, with this latest bunch Sins of a Solar Empire has a solid 88% on GameRankings.

Game Chronicles - 9.2

"I'll spare you the pun of "it would be a sin not to get this game RIGHT now." But seriously, Sins of a Solar Empire is a must for any strategy gamer's collection. I'd also highly recommend it to sci fi fans looking for something a little different than the next futuristic shooter. Killing alien scum with a laser rifle is so passé when you can vaporize the alien mothership with your trusty ion cannon."

HonestGamers - 9

"Sins of a Solar Empire is big and bad enough to root out the people who “don’t belong,” but familiar and accessible enough that any player who loves a good RTS can jump in, and have a lot of fun doing so. The wait for StarCraft II just got a little easier… and even once Blizzard’s highly anticipated sequel does roll around, don’t be surprised if it’s got a little competition on its hands. "

PC Zone UK - 9.1

"Sins is not a wild adrenaline ride, nor is it punctuated by meaningless visual flourishes. This game looks good, works smoothly in every department - and I mean every department - and offers a diverse challenge that will engage players for weeks, if not months."

GamingTrend - 93 (Gold Medal)

"If you enjoy space battles that are featured in Babylon 5 and other space operas, this game is for you. Not only is the game beautifully crafted, but also supported by the developer."

Gamasutra has posted the in-depth post-mortem on Sins of a Solar Empire.  For gamers as well as developers who want to see how a hit game was made that was done almost completely differently than the typical publisher/developer system, you'll definitely want to check this out.

It also has screenshots of very very early builds of Sins that you'll probably get a kick out of.

View: Sins of a Solar Empire Post-Mortem

Recently Joystiq sat down with Brad Wardell (Stardock CEO) and Chris Taylor (Gas Powered Games Founder) recently to talk a bit about Demigod, a little bit about Sins & Gal Civ 2, and of course about copy protection and where the PC games market is headed. 

The result?  It looks like PC Gaming isn't dead afterall, and that Stardock/Gas Powered Games have some interesting ideas on where the future lies.

Click to read the full interview, it's definitely worth a little bit of your time, and should give you a bit of a glimpse into what the future may hold.

GamerNode took at look at the PC game release calendar for this year and realized something; 2008 is a great year to be a PC strategy gamer!  While the article talks about genre giants like Starcraft 2, Empire: Total War and the highly anticipated Spore, do you know the game they led the feature with? 

If you said "Sins of a Solar Empire", you'd be right!

Highlighting Sins' scale, integration of 4X elements with real-time gameplay and an engine that performs well and looks great on a wide variety of systems, the game tops their list of PC strategy games to get your hands on as soon as possible.

Check out the full feature here for all the great strategy games coming out in 2008.

And people say that PC gaming is dead....

Stardock Entertainment and Kalypso Media are pleased to announce the signing of an agreement that will finally bring Sins of a Solar Empire to retail stores throughout Europe. 

The game will start appearing at retail beginning in late May/early June, though no specific dates have yet been set. We'll post more information as soon as it becomes available.

Sins of a Solar Empire v1.04 is now available for download.

Use THIS LINK to update to the latest version. If you are in the Impulse Beta, use the link provided here to update, don't use Impulse to update as we're in the process of updating the backend to support fast transfers of lots of little files which hasn't been perfected yet.

View: Change Log

Download: Sins of a Solar Empire v1.04

While we're not making any promises, we plan to have Sins of a Solar Empire v1.04 ready this week.  v1.04 is the first serious attempt to user-requested game balancing. 

We've gotten a lot of feedback in the past few weeks with some great ideas on tweaks to each of the different sides to make the game more enjoyable to players.  Obviously a lot of time has had to be spent play testing (and yes, we get paid to do this, so there, mom!) these changes to make sure the result truly is a more satisfactory experience.

Often times, what seems balanced (or unbalanced) on paper does not work out quite that way on-line. There are a lot of factors that just have to be played to be seen.  Moreover, a player's skill level along with strategy can completely alter one's perspective on balancing which has been both a challenge and quite enjoyable to observe. 

Both Stardock and Ironclad play multiplayer games pretty regularly (we don't usually advertise who we are) and it's really quite refreshing seeing new strategies being developed over time that we never would have considered.  This is one of the reasons why updates such as v1.04 will continue to be needed -- as players come up with new, innovative strategies, we will have to continue to update the game to ensure that no single strategy becomes too dominant -- this is what you pay us for, after all.

If all goes well, we hope to arrange a game night with the entire community.

Today Stardock and Gas Powered Games announced their partnership to develop and publish the much anticipated PC strategy/RPG game Demigod. Demigod is going to be a milestone PC game for a lot of reasons that will be made clear in the coming months.

So why should players of Sins of a Solar Empire care?  For one thing, it means that a sophisticated ladder, match making, account system will become a reality in the near future.  You see, Stardock, Ironclad, and Gas Powered Games are doing something that, to my knowledge, has never been done before. We three are combining our experiences and talents to build a unified multiplayer architecture.

That means your Sins of a Solar Empire achievements will become part of your account. Your wins, losses, and ranking (for those who choose to play ranked games) will be part of your account. You'll be able to find available games in Sins, Demigod, or The Political Machine (for starters) right from Impulse.  You'll be able to have a unified friends list, unified clan support, and much more that is supported by 3 games immediately and designed by 3 companies with a great deal of experience in this area.

Stay tuned, this is all going to happen a lot quicker than one might expect.