The Solus Project - PC Preview - by BoxCatHero ⋆ Moé Reviews

The Solus Project PC Preview by BoxCatHero of We Touch Games
Genre: Adventure, Indie, Simulation, Early Access
Developer: Hourences , Grip Games Publisher: Teotl Studios
Release Date: Feb 18, 2016

The Solus Project is an early access game from the studios Hourences and Grip Games, published by Teotl Studios. It is promoted as a single player exploration adventure with survival elements. Let me say this, I usually don’t play survival games because I find them a bit tedious. However, The Solus Project has lit the proverbial desire in me to play more games of this genre, and revisit ones I tried in past with fresh eyes. One thing I can definitely say about the devs is since the launch on February 18th, they have constantly been updating every week or two with either patches or new progress. Which, I have to say, is very noteworthy and rare in games out for early access. That alone peaked my interest when researching the game after I received my key to review it. So, without further adieu, let’s dive into what makes this game tick.

Now with most survival games, there is little underlying story or background to the game other than “Hey, things hit the fan and this is your life now. Good luck!” before dumping you into the game. This is not the case with TSP. The game begins with a cut-scene explaining that in the year 2115 it was discovered that the Earth, and the very solar system itself, will be destroyed by a rogue Class-B star that is on a collision course with Earth. To avoid this they, in 2149, launched three Prolus ships which carried thousands to a safe zone near Pluto. In 2151 the Earth was destroyed, and with the last of the resources left to them, the remaining survivors sent out 5 scout ships to distant worlds for a last ditch effort at survival called The Solus Project. 15 years later and your scout ship reaches an alien world. Of course, as with all things, something goes horribly wrong and your scout ship is destroyed.

You narrowly survive in an escape pod, and this is where the game begins: you falling with the pod onto the alien world. At that moment you are able to look around slightly inside your escape pod before it crashes onto the surface. After waking up from the crash and crawling out of the wreckage, you find your PDA code-named Wilson. I am not joking, it even says so on the PDA when you look at it via looking down towards your feet. It is your main way of viewing your your statistics for survival and other useful useful information. It lists your health, core temperature, calories, hydration, sleep gauge, environment temperature, humidity, and wind speed on the main screen. Along the top it shows you the distance to your next objective, and on the side it displays your resistances, body wetness, and dry speed.

The PDA has several other useful functions, such as scanning items to tell you what they are, and providing verbal warnings about your condition if it gets bad. After picking up your PDA there are several tutorial notes laying around explaining things about the game. You have two ways to interact with objects in the environment, and they are color coded when you attempt to interact. Blue is is to pick up the object and orange is to craft/activate the object. Crafting can be done in several different ways. It can be done from your inventory or by holding an object and interacting with another object in the environment. Game play is pretty straight forward other than this.

You explore, find materials, use some of said materials to survive, oh and die. Yeah there several ways to die in game, ones I’ve discovered so far are; starvation, dehydration, lack of sleep, hypothermia, drowning, and let’s not forget the greatest foe of all… Gravity aka falling off a ledge and going splat.

Let’s move away from mechanics and onto things of a graphical nature. I am talking cut-scenes, loading screens, and environmental detail! As far as I have discovered so far, there is only the opening cut-scene in the game, because I am roughly 1-1.5 hours into the game at the time of writing this review and have yet to come across more. Shifting onto the topic of the loading screens, the first one you come across is the one loading into the game for the first time. It’s a view of the landscape and tells the day/night cycle of the planet in absolutely gorgeous detail. Before I move onto environmental detail, let me say that I played the game on ultra settings in 1920×1080, so it may be a different experience for others. On the level of detail I have it set to, you can see the grass sway ever so gently in the wind, the waves of the ocean look crisp and fluid, and the sky is bountiful in color.

And now it’s time for the final part, the audio, which is as important to the game as the visuals are. To begin, let’s revisit the loading into a new game cut scene. As the pod is crashing onto the planet, you can clearly hear the turbulence, alarms, and other sounds clearly and separately from each other. However they mesh really well together, forming a comprehensive suite of sounds. As far as ambient and environmental sounds they are fairly good. You can hear the waves lick the ground on the coast, the grass rustle ever so slightly as you move through it, water dripping down in a cave, the roar of the engine of a crashed ship on the beach, and all of it sound fairly realistic. The music, on the other hand, is rather unremarkable and isn’t very memorable at all.

Now let’s bring this to a close as I give my final thoughts. Overall I enjoyed the game play and the interface was easy to use. The music was lackluster and not memorable, however the ambient and environmental sounds were really well done, as are the voices. The detail on the graphics with the highest settings were amazing and well done. I can say that when it is fully complete, and all the content is there, it will be well worth the price of $14.99. Even before being complete I’d say it is worth the price.