Sol: Exodus is a space flight simulator; a genre that was very popular ten years ago but steadily fell off. Sol uses new features of today’s computers to improve on old systems and borrows from other genres to create new features. The end result is very interesting and this post will critique the unique combat hacking system and enemy fighter design.
The game’s combat is standard dog fighting for the most part but for larger enemies there is an interesting new system: Hacking. Ships too large to attack directly can be weakened by hacking their computers to expose sweet spots that are vulnerable to the player’s weapons. Hacking takes the form of a memory mini-game that goes on while the player is still flying through space. The hacking window shows an ever changing grid of letters and numbers that gradually fade while the correct characters will glow one by one in sequential order. After the key has been revealed the player just has to pick it out of a list of similar looking keys. The Hacking window is well sized and placed to allow players to hack and dog fight at the same time. In game I found having to do both at the same time was manageable and gave a sense of intensity to the character matching mini-game.
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| Hacking - Lower Left Corner |
The enemy design is where the game falls down a bit. Enemy fighters and frigates are all very dark in their color scheme which lets them fade into the blackness of space. On one hand this is realistic but on the other hand it doesn’t make for good fun. Even large enemies can get mixed up in the background when the player is moving at max speed. The targeting computer compensates a little in this regard but I’d rather be able to see brightly colored space ships (see Battlestar Galactica’s Viper design).
The biggest issue I had with the game was its most used mission type and the enemies associated with that mission: the escort quest. Most of the missions will require the player to protect an asset from various types of enemies. The most frustrating of which are the leech ships which are tiny, dull colored, do massive damage, and latch onto the sides of friendly ships. They don’t target the player but the assets the player is trying to protect and this is where the frustration comes from. Making strafing runs against an enemy cruiser is one thing but strafing a friendly ship looking for little grey-blue bulbs to shoot off is another thing entirely. This wouldn’t be as large an issue if this enemy and mission type weren’t always reappearing.
As a whole the game is competent and has some potential. For now though its mission selection and enemy design are holding it back by creating frustration instead of engagement.
