Sol Survivor is an ambitious, XNA coded, cross platform turret defence title. Initially dry to the point of cream cracker challenge in genre description, its professional presentation and action/strategy combination attempt justification of its 800 MS points price tag in an already crowded market. Promise of hands on ‘œorbital support’ assistance and unique commanders boasting varied tower selections and play styles build the title up to appear an extremely high end, considered entry to turret defence on both PC and Xbox Live Indie Games. Thanks to Cadenza Interactive for offering us a review code for the Xbox version in order to pass our own, informed critique.

A loose story runs alongside the game’s twenty-some skirmishes in a space setting doing little to differentiate it from Xbox market leader Defence Grid: The Awakening. Players must position various stationary offensive and defensive towers in order to prevent oncoming waves of traditionally speed inhibited ‘œcreeps’ hugging predetermined paths with ruthless efficiency in approach of the playfield’s central hub. Enemies carry standard turret defence attributes, encouraging the player to adapt their defences accordingly, bolstering the sidewalks of war with weapons appropriate to deal with organic, armoured, aerial and cloaked attackers. So far, so pedestrian, but it is the agency allowed over a radial dial of immediate, sky-spawned air strike variants that attempts to elevate the title above its nearest competitors.

Grade boundaries: non-existent.

Maps are split into groups with each set allotted its own selection of officers. Hand illustrated headshots accompany brief biographies and each character’s altered armoury load invites multiple plays of a single stage to beat previously recorded scores using different combinations of varyingly ranged weapons. Frustratingly, an immediate failing of Sol Survivor is the lack of real incentive to vary officer choice: the omission of a medal system or online score board rendering the scoring of each effort largely pointless.

Similarly, as the value of your colony drops with each un-quashed creep’s entry, nothing other than your eventual score is affected, with the only repercussion coming when its value drops to zero. Defence Grid encourages the player to return to a stage due to its tight ranking system for each attempt, the highest accolades available only with careful planning and a full house at round end. Here, the lack of reward or punishment other than inhibition or steady advance through the title’s linear campaign drops replayability of a title which in set-up, dies to be replayed. Success remains satisfyingly enjoyable, yet the lack of quantifiable reward removes the reason to desperately reload at mission end for one more go.

Ready Salted

Sol Survivor’s control scheme works well, with player-appreciated full camera manoeuvrability a saving grace when played against the game’s often necessary, tactical viewing distance. While the ability to pan the camera to encompass the entire battlefield is important to the genre, the 360° of rotation and macro-zoom afforded to the right stick is tremendously helpful too in accurately identifying the largely generic design work of both turret and enemy alike.

Even with the basic colour coding of each armoury placement, gun towers are seemingly rendered as clones when viewed on high, the selection of each individual for more information functional, but awkward and unwieldy when designing battlements and scanning paths at pace. The insectoid attackers distinguish themselves with a slightly more varied organic sheen, instead suffering in their brigadier march as sci-fi stereotypes, affording the game none of its own character outside of the comparably awkward, back of an exercise book CO scrawls. As a whole, the presentation of Sol Survivor is beautifully professional, but aesthetically cold; the simulated polish on each panel of a vehicular creep doing its best to add gloss to its flat, uninspired vector frame beneath.

Searing DIY

The oft-touted, innovatory admission of constantly recharged, live action, aerial intervention allowed me to enjoy Sol Survivor more than the clinical Defence Grid. The instantaneous thrill of driving a laser column through oncoming droves affords the defensive experience an aggressive front unparalleled by similar genre entries. The added layer of tactical multi-tasking not only eases one of the stand-out frustrations of the game’s cousins, but melds the game further with real time strategy without impeaching too far upon borrowed characteristics.

Coupled with this aerial support, Sol Survivor’s component parts exhibit remarkable balance. Presumably the product of tight playtesting and in-team quality assurance, the outcome of each zone’s player attempts feel consistently fair. Here, failure is never the fault of anything other than a lack of personal attention to wave type or ill-timed upgrades.

A few other points worth mentioning:

• There is remarkable PR focus on Sol Survivor’s co-operative and competitive multiplayer, however, as with nearly all XBLIGs there were no matches available to join in the two weeks in which I played the game.
• The radial dial controls for tower and support selection demands a small coordinatory learning curve. First skirmishes see the camera driving against desire as player releases shoulder buttons whilst gripping tight to their directional choice.
• Sol Survivor features interesting, sometimes difficult pathing from the off. There is little straight-line hand holding past the tutorial stage with creeps criss-crossing to advance towards disparately placed hub trios from the off.
• The game is without the quick checkpoint restarts of similar titles, with failed strategies punished vehemently and without the opportunity to dial back in rewind to alter ailing placement.

The inevitable, recurring comparison to Defence Grid is perhaps tired but complimentary in that Sol Survivor near consistently meets the former’s critically high calibre. Minor niggles aside, Sol Survivor is a confident foray into tactical gaming and value for money despite its now service-ceilinged price point. Despite its play it safe art direction, the gameplay itself is different enough to warrant attention from genre fans and tower sceptics alike.

You should play this game if’¦

…you spend the majority of a traditional tower defence session screaming “OH FOR FUCK’S SAKE, SHOOT THE ARMOURED ONE” at an ascending volume.

Final Score
An unerringly solid, well balanced though largely soulless title. Exercising admirable ambition, Cadenza Interactive have injected aspects of genuine innovation into a genre they’ll unfortunately struggle to snare due to XBLIG budget pre-conceptions.

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