XBLIG News, Reviews & Previews

Now, this is a game that people are going to be talking about for a while. At first glance, you would think “Another turret game? Why would I want one of those?” But, having played the XBLA game Defense Grid and holding it up against this one, I would say that this one wins hands down. This, by far, is the far superior of the two games. I’ve found that there is more of a challenge involved in Sol Survivor because you only get one chance to defeat the aliens as opposed to two. Cadenza has created a game that will not fail to please even the most die hard of gamer fans.

The object of the game is to defeat the creeps that are invading the planets and threatening the colonists. You have several Commanders to choose from to help you defeat the creeps. Each with their own selection of devastating weapons and support armament. Your weapons are turrets ranging from simple fire to bullets to lasers. The support armament range from poison to lasers to nuclear weapons all coming from the support ships in orbit. Combined, this makes for a great strategy RTS. Earlier, I had mentioned that you only get one chance to defeat the creeps as they come at you wave after wave. In this game, the creeps are coming to get the colonists. They travel along the path to get to the outpost. Unlike Defense Grid, Sol Survivor’s creatures don’t capture the colonists and then attempt to bring them back to the mothership. Theirs is a suicide mission. You lose one colonist for each creep that enters the outpost.

However, the solo play is not the only way to play this game. You also have co-op and multiplayer. In co-op you can play with another person to try and defeat the creeps. There is also up to 8 player multiplayer options for both system link and online multiplayer. After playing the multiplayer games recently with the developers, I can honestly say that I was very much impressed. The multiplayer is one of the shining jewels of the game. There are both co-op and war games available in the multiplayer section. You can either co-operate with your friends to stave off attacks on multiple outposts by the creeps in co-op or you can send your own batches of creeps off to take out the enemies. I commend the developers on the amount of work that went into this game.

The graphics in the game are top notch. You can zoom in close to the map to see what is going on or zoom out to get a larger perspective without losing any of the detail of what is going on at all. Instead of just building your turrets where you want them placed, the turrets are sent from the support ship as you select them. They come down as missiles and are erected from there. In the online multiplayer, I would recommend zooming out on the map while this is happening as it is really something to see from a larger perspective.

The sound in Sol Survivor is also very good. The lasers have a unique sound when you fire them from the support ships. The explosions are great and you absolutely have to see the nuclear explosions from the support ship to get the full effect. You have music in the background to compliment the game but it doesn’t interfere with the game itself like some music will do.

A very professional job was done on this game and makes it one of the ones to definitely stand head and shoulders above the others. If Microsoft were to have an annual awards ceremony for xblig games, this one would definitely come out light years ahead of all the others out there. A real gem at 800 MS Points. This is definitely a game that you won’t regret getting. Download it, play it and get on those multiplayer boards.

Right now we are only rating to 5 thumbs up but this game definately deserves more than that.