Review by: Dave VanDyk

Some time ago I engaged in a review of Sins of a Solar Empire: Entrenchment, coming away with the conclusion that while the expansion could have used a bit more punch to it, the fact it was going for such a flipping cheap price pretty much offset any complaints I had. It's hard to argue against an expansion pack that adds just enough new stuff to be interesting without charging you an arm and a leg, unless you're part of the crowd that would prefer the developers spend their time and resources on fewer, larger releases instead.

Developer Kerberos Productions has already proven itself in this regard. The company has released not one, but two full-fledged expansions for their hit 4X series Sword of the Stars, each one adding a completely new race, additional abstract technologies to play with, and fresh gameplay concepts (trading, morale, space stations, etc.) that drastically affect how the game is played. So while it's a bit sobering to learn that the latest expansion - Argos Naval Yard - has dialed things down a notch, I'm still stuck in the position of having no choice but to give this thing accolades simply because of how low of a price it's going for—although don't get me wrong: there's still more than enough content here that one gets the impression this is meant to be one last 'hoorah' before the developers shift focus towards Sword of the Stars 2 and other projects.

And what a hoorah it is! For starters, the expansion provides a standard-issue collection of new weapons and technologies to play with. Each race has been granted access to a set of unique weapons beyond just stronger versions of lasers or missiles - for example, the new "Polarized Plasmatics" tree enables deployment of energy weapons that slice through targets, and the new Inertial Cannon weapons which will negatively impact a target's speed. My personal favorite however are the new Rail Cannons, which let you mount a set of hilarious, oversized mega-cannons to the side of a Cruiser or Dreadnaught. The long range, fast-moving projectiles fired by the cannons incur a tremendous amount of damage, and also have a strong kinetic effect which can result in larger ships being pushed into things.

I found few things more amusing in the expansion than unleashing salvo after salvo of Rail Cannon rounds at a wave of enemy ships during a battle, only to have them ram uncontrollably into the very planet they were supposed to be defending. New ship sections further compliment the addition of these weapons, with some variations of existing modules (such as the "Blaze" section) enabling you to channel an even more ridiculous amount of firepower through your ship's forward batteries. Many of the existing weapons (the beam cannons in particular) have also been given a bit of a graphical upgrade, so there's even more to look forwards to here.