Get your Sol Survivor fix on the PC through Steam.
Soul Surviror made a splash on Xbox Live Indie Games a little bit back, bringing us a tower defense game with some neat twists to the formula and, in my opinion, beating out the XBLA release Defense Grid by a large margin. And what added to that intense level of polish was the fact that it didn’t skimp on features like a lot of indie games on Microsoft’s service did having full Xbox Live multiplayer support. And now it’s out for the PC through Steam for $9.99.
Jump in to intense turret defense action with Sol Survivor! Build turrets to defend your colony and the innocent colonists within. Smash enemies with volleys of actively-controlled orbital support. Play with friends in co-operative and competitive multiplayer matches or test your mettle against our new Survival mode!
- Support abilities, allowing more direct influence in the battle.
- Select from one of 10 load-outs to fit your play style.
- Up to 8 player multiplayer with 4 different modes, featuring both competitive and co-operative play.
- Immersive control and camera design, giving a better view of the battle.
- Survival mode, testing even the most well constructed defenses.
- In-game encyclopedia, providing deep statistics and strategies.
- Achievements, Leaderboards and Steam Cloud support.
And judging from that last bullet point, it didn’t skimp all that much on features for the PC release either. Having Steam Cloud support is beyond awesome and something that every game on the service should have that can support it. And, in this humble blogger’s opinion, it’s all set up to kick Defense Grid’s ass on the PC front. Honestly, where a game like this belongs.
Another Sol Survivor Review
Dhalamar has mentioned Sol Survivor a few times in the past (here & here), and it was because of his continued praise that I decided to try it out again after the game got an update and a dedicated trial level a few weeks back. I'm glad I did because it is one of the best tower defense games I've ever played. The co-op and multiplayer modes are really well done and something you don't generally see in tower defense games.I put together a longer review of my experiences with the game. You can check it out here.
First impressions for Sol Survivor
My initial impressions of Sol Survivor upon it's initial release (you can read it here) were those of skepticism due to the fact it was released only a week after Defense Grid hit XBLA ... and being that this is in the indie games section it has two major things working against it. It's an indie game, and it's in the Indie Games section, which means the trial is going to be stripped down to 8 minutes.
I tried that trial, and being that I'm new to tower defense games in general, I just wasn't feelin' it. 8 minutes isn't anywhere near long enough for games like that for someone like me. Earlier today I went ahead and bought it though, because this is flat out a AAA title. Hell, if I'm correct it's been in development for over a year.
The Xbox Live Indie Game Sol Survivor is here, but …
The game looks damned impressive, even though I wasn't really feelin' the trial. But that's mostly because I'm new to tower defense games PERIOD and the Indie Games are unfortunately limited to 8 minutes.
The game came out, obviously, and obviously I downloaded the trial. Unfortunately ... there are a few marks against it, which have nothing to do with the game itself. It's a victim of unfortunate timing since Defense Grid came out on XBLA recently ... everyone and their mother who's into these games has heard of Defense Grid and has probably been salivating over the impending XBLA release, which is from what I understand cheaper than it's PC counterpart that's been out for at least a year. And ... who's really heard of Sol Survivor?
It's also 800 points. The exact same price as Defense Grid. So at that price point it's in DIRECT competition with it. And the trial for Defense Grid, though limited, can be played as long as you want within those limits. Sol Survivor is, unfortunately, locked down with that 8 minute trial time limit.
I was really looking forward to it, and had it been 400 points, even with me not really feelin' the trial due to my "newness" I was going to snag it anyway. Because 8 minutes is definitely not enough time to really get the feel for a game like this. But at 800 points it's a tough sell. Especially since I haven't even finished Defense Grid yet.
And for people who don't have Defense Grid ... they're going to see two 800 point 3D AAA tower defense games with a hell of a lot of production value and tons of polish ... but more than likely they're going to be put off by the 800 point entry fee (like me) of Sol Survivor, or they're going to go with Defense Grid that has a proven record instead of the brand new Indie Game.
XBLIG turret defense game Sol Survivor is almost here.
You can check out a little commentary video right here for it. It looks to be a damned interesting tower (or in this case turret) defense game that bases itself mostly around multiplayer.
Sol Survivor DBP09 Multiplayer Commentary from Cadenza Interactive on Vimeo.
Looks like another AAA game for the Indie Games section to me, and something I definitely wanna try out being that I'm kind of new to the whole tower defense style games. You can check out the official site right here for more information, as well as an extended commentary video.