Let me take you back…
At first glance Sun Age looks like a relic from the past. After all, 2D isometric perspective seems almost abandoned by today’s strategy game that specialized 3D engines rivaling action games in complexity and flashy graphics to awe-inspire the player and shift focus from gameplay to eye candy. Thus it’s refreshing to see an RTS using the tried and tested visual approach of the past and attempting to return to the genre’s mantra ‘gameplay over graphics’ which if it’s done right there might be a great game in our hands.
Tried and tested mouse and keyboard
In Sun Age issuing orders and managing your troops is done by means of mouse and keyboard shortcuts, a straight-forward interface that has a number of interesting features. By selecting a given number of similar units, for example, they are all grouped automatically and controlled by selecting just one of them, or infantry squads can be reinforced by selecting identical units and just right-clicking on the soon-to-be-reinforced unit. Furthermore, Sun Age’s formation controls are clean, efficient and they do make a difference in combat since having 2-deep or 4-deep lines of vehicles or infantry affect not only their damage output but survivability as well. In addition, once a formation is selected the units do maintain it when moving or re-adjusting when there’s simply not enough room to do so. Vertex4 should receive the necessary credit for their formation mechanics since other highly anticipated games from far larger developers haven’t managed to incorporate them in their games.
Resource gathering and base building isn’t necessarily a bad thing…
Despite the recent RTS games that in their vast majority try to avoid these features like the plague, Vertex4 keeping up with their ‘back to the roots’ approach has incorporated detailed and structured material and base building mechanics.
At the core of Sun Age’s gameplay lays the gathering system and base-building. In the game there are four different resources available for harvesting namely Nitrium Ore, Plutonium, Zirkonium and Iberium Rods layered out in tiers. As you might have guessed a certain combination of the abovementioned resources is required to produce units, structures and upgrades depending on their tech level. Thus, for your basic infantry units and light scouts all you need is Nitrium while more advanced and powerful vehicles and upgrades require Plutonium, Zirkonium and ultimately Iberium Rods. Sounds complicated but the different materials are seamlessly incorporated according to the player’s advance and choice of arsenal and more important there’s only one gathering unit required for all of them.
As for base building, it’s a rather complicated affair since each and every building, from unit production to supply and storage facilities, has to be connected by means of energy relays to the central hub. Hence, it’s deemed necessary for you to guard the series of relay stations in case that you’ve set up a forward base, since they are primary targets for your enemy. In short, no power equals a heap of useless buildings.
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Sun Age 
