Fresh out of the Xbox Game Preview program comes The Solus
Project, a sci-fi first-person-adventure that has you trying to survive on an
alien planet. Don’t be fooled into
thinking this is just another survival sim, though, as The Solus Project holds
a dark secret – it’s actually a horror game.
With a fascinating world to explore and truly stunning presentation,
along with some fantastic twists and turns, The Solus Project is easy to recommend
for sci-fi and horror fans. See our full
review for all of the details.
Game Details
- Publisher: Grip Digital
- Developer: Teotl Studios, Grip Studios
- ESRB Rating: “T” for Teen
- Genre: First-Person-Adventure
- Pros: Good presentation; interesting world to explore; surprising genre shift
- Cons: Pointless survival elements; clunky gameplay; puzzles aren’t great
- MSRP: $20
The titular “Solus Project” is a fleet of ships full of
colonists sent out to discover a new planet to live on after Earth is
destroyed. Your character’s ship has an
accident while in orbit around an alien planet and crash lands on the
surface. From there, The Solus Project
turns into a game of survival, as you have to scavenge parts and essential
items from the wreckage of the ship and try to find other survivors.
At first, The Solus Project really seems like it is going to
be a hardcore survival game. You have
to eat food, drink water, sleep, and carefully monitor your body temperature in
order to survive and that is what the initial few minutes heavily focus
on. Except, as you’ll quickly realize,
survival is really, really easy in The Solus Project. Food and water are extremely easy to come by. Maintaining your body temperature is as
simple as holding a torch to keep warm at night or retreating into the shade to
stay out of the sun during the day. The
survival aspect is almost totally pointless here and adds literally nothing to
the game.
That’s fine, though, because The Solus Project isn’t
actually a survival game. Instead, it
is an adventure game with horror elements.
Surprising, right? It also isn’t
open world and rather a linear experience where you travel through a series of
islands and caves, unraveling the mystery of the alien planet as you go. There are some larger open sections that you
can explore and find extra items and alien artifacts and stuff, but for the
most part anything essential to progress is always found out in the open close
to the main path through each area.
Puzzles consist mostly of simply scouring an area to find the key item
you need, but you also have a neat device that lets you shoot little discs out
and then teleport to them in order to get through barred doors and climb around
on stuff.
The game is split between exploration on the surface and
underground in caves, and as you explore you discover that another sentient
race used to call this planet home. You
find ruins of their settlements as well as temples and other facilities. You also find writings and murals that
indicate another alien race from the sky were largely responsible for their
development. The further you get into
the game, however, the darker and more sinister the murals and writings get as
something terrible happened to the people and the planet.
Delving deeper into the mystery is where the horror elements
come in. Rather than having big scary
aliens you have to fight suddenly pop up, however, The Solus Project is much
more subtle. There is a pervasive
creepiness that gets under your skin as the ruins get more weird and twisted
and you start seeing stranger and stranger things and a sense of dread builds
and builds that keeps you glued to the game until you see what everything
means. It is absolutely brilliant.
It is a bit of a shame that the gameplay isn’t a little more
polished, but since there isn’t any combat or anything that really requires
super fast reactions, it gets the job done.
Picking up items or using your inventory or the simple crafting system
can only be described as “clunky”, though.
It is also a let down that the puzzles are so simple and straightforward
and the survival aspects seem like they were meant for a different game than
what The Solus Project ended up being.
We can forgive all that, though, because as a complete
experience The Solus Project more than makes up for those shortcomings. The alien planet is awesome looking with a
great skybox featuring multiple moons and gorgeous stars. You see a lot of really, really neat stuff,
too, so the thrill of exploration just to see what you’ll find next is a big
motivator to keep you playing. Things
like impressive structures and landscapes, meteor showers, and tornadoes and
extreme weather are simply incredible.
The mystery of the planet and the horror elements keep you hooked as
well.
The appeal of The Solus Project is almost entirely about the
thrill of exploration rather than the moment-to-moment gameplay, and if you’re
cool with that you’re in for a real treat.
If you’re ever dreamed of exploring an alien planet and seeing truly new
and unique things you’ve never seen before, The Solus Project is a wonderful
experience. It is also pretty lengthy,
too, at 15-20 hours long, which is a great value considering the $20 price
tag. Sci-fi fans, particularly horror /
sci-fi (think “Alien”) will have a great time with The Solus Project. Buy it.
