I am a big fan of space flight simulators. It doesn't matter if it's the X3 type where you control a vast trading empire as you roam the galaxy with your fleet or the the more simpler classic version where you just fly around in your ship and shoot other ships. That's why a game like SOL:Exodus managed to excited me before I even knew anything about it beyond the genre. Trouble with getting excited over a genre rather than the individual game however is that more often than not, you buy a really bad game.
SOL:Exodus is a simple flight simulator. You fly around in a small fighter craft and shoot at varying forms and sizes of enemy ships, from other fighter craft to big burly bomber ships. Not much else to it, as you complete missions you get the ability to upgrade some of your ships basic systems but it never goes beyond more health or more damage. Sounds like a concept too simple to screw up, unfortunately it is not that.
The flying mechanics in Exodus is down right broken. There is no perpetual motion, no strafing, no features of the kind you would expect in this kind of game. You fly in a straight line against your chosen target until you get to weapons range then you match speeds and mash the fire button until it is destroyed. Rinse. Repeat.
Zero gravity flight is usually some of the most innovative and interesting gameplay you can find but in this game they somehow managed to make it dull and uninspired.
The storyline of Exodus takes place in the far future, Earth's sun is set to go supernova and you are part of an expedition that's traveled to the far reaches of the galaxy to find a suitably planet for all Humans to relocate to. You start the game as you discover just such a world but before you have any time to celebrate you get attack by a bunch of religious fanatics. Going back to Earth to tell your fellow humans about this wondrous discovery of yours you find that a religious cult has taken over, one that believes dying in a supernova is a good thing. And so now you must fight these over the top bad guys in order to let humanity migrate to this new world you have found.
Graphically the game falls flatly on the mediocre scale. Space is nice and black but don't get too close to anything or you might notice the game's low budget. Sound is equally unspectacular and the voice acting is just plain atrocious.
SOL:Exodus is a bad game in a dying genre and it will unfortunately get a lot of sales from people like me, desperate for a new fix. If you have any sense though you will stay well clear of it.
Also that one dead achievement makes my pseudo-OCD go nuts.