“A sci-fi strategy which is well worth your time, Ashes of the Singularity doesn’t fail to impress.”
Stardock have proven that if they know anything, they know science fiction strategy. As the publishers of Offworld Trading Company, Galactic Civilisations III and Sins of a Solar Empire Rebellion, they already have a very recognisable name in the industry. Their collaboration with relative newcomers Oxide Games to bring us Ashes of the Singularity then is an exciting development indeed. As debut games go, Ashes has already received a lot of attention and interest. I have been playing it to see if it lives up to the hype.
Ashes of the Singularity is set in a future where the human race has learned to transcend their physical biology. Whilst many undesirable traits have been extinguished in doing so, one very clearly still remains; war. Some of the planets which the post-humans control have begun to spiral their automated inhabitants out of control. Aggression is rife, and these corrupted souls must be expelled. As a result, advanced mechanised armies wage war on the surface of numerous worlds in order to stop end the corruption and seek out its source.
The story has a fantastic backdrop which makes Ashes both exciting and deeply interesting at the offset. Unfortunately, the way it is carried from this point is somewhat lacking. The first levels of the story mode, entitled Ascendancy Wars, play out as simple, dull tutorials with a micro-story that feels a little forced. These levels seem especially unnecessary given that the game already has a dedicated tutorial to teach you the basics of skirmishes. Most players will surely head for the tutorial before jumping into the game, so there is no need to attempt to re-teach the same concepts twice. By the time you reach the bulk of the story missions it is easy to feel disheartened by the amount you have been held back, and despite the interesting storytelling continuing it is hard to get back to being fully immersed.
The tutorial mode itself does a great job at both teaching you how to play but also causing irritation. The game strong arms you into playing at its pace rather than your own, by causing you to lose the mission if you work ahead of what it is trying to show you at the time. Rather than locking the parts of the map that it doesn’t want you to reach yet, the objectives are wide open. If you move on them however, a passive aggressive warning appears, and if you push your luck you loose and have to start from scratch. It’s an aggravating system, but if you do follow orders well you will find that the tutorial gives you everything you need to crack on and play the game.
Gameplay in Ashes is easy to figure out and the system is strong. There are two routes to victory; destroying all enemy bases in the form of their Nexus, or capturing the majority of the Turinium generators on the planet in order to cause an overload. As you work towards these goals, there are two basic resources to play for; metals and radioactives. The latter can be converted into Quanta energy, which is used to upgrade certain capabilities such as storage space or your maximum military count. It can also be put towards orbital abilities ranging from scanning and support drops to large scale strikes dealing massive damage. It goes without saying then that the Quanta energy is crucial to victory. Metals on the other hand are used for building structures and units.
Military might is the key to victory in Ashes, and the focus of the game is exclusively on this element. Every building you make and action you take works towards expanding your army. Battles in Ashes are huge too, with unit counts well into the hundreds when you enter into a major conflict. Army composition is where Ashes becomes really well thought out and special. Every game has its specific unit types for different purposes, but few games make it feel as important as Ashes does. It’s drilled in during the tutorial, but makes a clear difference in practice too. Units range from small frigates and mid-sized cruisers and aircrafts up to huge dreadnaughts, with each class having specialised units within them. The large dreadnaught class units are the most interesting however, with their own levelling systems and the ability to call in reinforcements from the frontline. Each ship naturally has a hard counter as well, meaning a combination is always necessary to win a battle. Mixtures of units can be combined into armies as well, which fight as one solid unit rather than a mix of several. There are advantages and disadvantages to fighting in this way, and it is preferable to have several reasonably sized armies than one massive one in order to execute more elaborate strategies. With massive dreadnaughts at the core of these organised groups, every single fight looks 100% epic.
Ashes of the Singularity is almost certainly best played in skirmish mode. If you have friends of an equal skill level, and who can cope and appreciate the large-scale warfare, you will have a lot of fun with this game. Skirmish mode and the alternative single game mode variants are designed with simple objectives on sensible maps, making playing the game the real highlight. If you do not have friends to play with right now, a skirmish against the intelligent and genuinely challenging AI still makes for a decent game. On low difficulty, the AI is easily dispatched, but upwards from the standard setting you will be up against a competent and balanced opponent.
However you choose to play the game, one thing that is awesome almost across the board is its aesthetics. Units, buildings and maps are beautiful visually, and when a fight kicks off the entire experience culminates in a sci-fi fans dream. The sound of laser-powered weapons firing from hundreds of units at once manages to sound almost orchestral, rather than the mess that you might expect. The different coloured lights flying around the screen make it easy to understand the action and are visually impressive all the while. The only downside in the game’s design is the maps themselves. Although there is plenty of variety and a few visual variances, each map is very plain bar a few mountainous regions spread across them. The action does a lot to make things look exciting anyway, but in the early game there isn’t much to look at, so a few more unique features in the landscapes wouldn’t go amiss.
A sci-fi strategy which is well worth your time, Ashes of the Singularity doesn’t fail to impress. It isn’t the perfect RTS, with a setting that is interesting but isn’t best paced and maps that lack in some level of detail, but the gameplay itself is very strong, simple to learn and exciting to experience. The military focus of the game is very impressively developed and succeeds in terms of both strategic design and grand spectacle. If you are a sci-fi strategy fan then this is a game you have to own. RTS fans in general will be able to appreciate much of what the game has to offer. For anyone else, this is certainly a game you should consider adding to your Steam wish list, even if you don’t want to buy it right now.
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