The good
Occasionally awesome level design
Maintains a consistent creepy atmosphere
Great lighting and fog/mist
Story is engaging once you get into it
Great stealth mechanics
Trading cards and achievements
I got it cheap as part of a bundle

The bad
Highly derivative of other games, namely Dead Space and System Shock 2
No quick-save
Animations are awkward
Some samey-looking levels and areas
Limited weapon variety
Not enough ammo for the weapons
Combat can be a pain
Too short

This game
Hooooo boy, this game.

I got Solarix because I had just ran out of System Shock to play and was craving a sci-fi horror game in space to fill the void. And for the most part, that’s exactly what I got.

Solarix is a sci-fi horror game that is predominantly stealth based with a bit of FPS tacked on. Emphasis on stealth though. You literally cannot go guns blazing in this game as ammo is incredibly scarce. And even if you wanted to, it takes a lot of bullets to kill just one enemy and they are alerted to your presence the moment you shoot them, so good luck even trying.

Instead, you use your guns to shoot out lights to make the sneaky stealthing a lot easier. The stealth for the most part is well designed, combining both noise and sight into its mechanics. It's simple enough to intuitively understand and deep enough to get a good feel out of stalking, circumventing and taking out guards.

However, my biggest gripe with the game is its frankly bizarre hitboxes. I don't know how or why, but in the second half of the game, the electro-shocker became incredibly unreliable for taking out guards. I'd stand there blasting away at the back of their heads for ages until I accidently either shoot too high, too low or miss and they'd instantly be alerted to my presence. This made the game so much more difficult than it needed to be and was the cause for about 65% of my deaths. Even wose, sometimes I'd try for ages until saying "screw this" and just shooting them. Other times it'd work perfectly. I am convinced the game randomly decides to make the enemies immune to the electro-shocker for shiggles.

Likewise, even the shotgun lacked a lot of punch and didn't help much when I got caught in a bad situation. Really, your best bet when spotted is to run and hide in a dark corner until the enemy loses sight of you. I guess this works well for the stealth as it discourages you from trying to muscle your way through challenges, but I did not find it enhancing the game in any way.

The AI for the guards was also quite strange. It was not uncommon to see a guard walk into a doorway or a pile of boxes and get stuck there. Likewise, sometimes if they chased you and then stopped as you got away, they'd get stuck in your path and you'd be unable to progress. Another weird thing they do is that in darkness you can be right up in front of them and they won't notice, but god forbid you move in anything more than a crawl near them or they'll instantly know where you are.

Also, they appear to be afraid of stairs.

Another problem that I only really encountered at the beginning of the game was an overabundance of invisible walls. Sure, in some areas it'd robably be a stretch to fit through, but in other places it was a serious immersion breaker to see a large gap that you should by all means be able to fir through.

The games not all bad though. I gotta say, the voice acting in this game is quite sublime. Characters actually emote and you can really feel the fear in their voices. The lore too is very intricate and filled with all kinds of facets that add extra dimensions to the story. Mind you, sometimes the voices were too distorted or crackly and it became quite difficult to make out what they were saying. The UI is very good and the objective menu for the most part helped me out when I'd be otherwise stuck Graphically, the game looks impressive. Let me tell you, stepping outside the spaceship and into space, I was gobsmacked! The spaceship looked so good!

But what's a good horror game without a good story right? Ho boy...

This is without a doubt the most depressing game I have ever played. Basically, you play as Walter, an engineer who wakes up in a ruined base that’s gone to hell. With the help of the AI AMI and the enigmatic Betty, you try and find a cure for the mysterious and deadly infection that is decimating he colony all the while trying to deal with the ever watchful and threatening EYE. Without wishing to spoil too much, Murphy's Law is in full effect. Everything that can go wrong goes wrong. By the end of the game... Yeah. The ending in particular hammers home just how badly things went to hell.

People often praise a game for being depressing, as it is an incredibly potent emotional experience. For me though, I can't help but wonder what the point of it all was. At the end of the game, you've basically accomplished nothing. 12 hours I sunk into this game to beat it and coming out of it, I question whether or not it was worth it.

I suppose in a meta sense, this game shines with its oppressive atmosphere. You a far far away from home in an incredibly hostile and haunting environment with nothing but deranged guards and mindless zombies in your wake. And at the end of it all, that atmosphere stays with you as you wonder to yourself what the point of it all is and just how much it all really mattered.

At the end of it all, I'm really not sure whether I like this game or not. For all the dodgy hitboxes and spotty AI the game had, it also had well-designed environments and lore/story that really got to you both for the emotional gutpunch of an ending and for an interesting experience in futility. I guess I got what I was looking for with more sci-fi horror in space, but I like my games to feel as though I accomplished something. So in the end, I guess I've got a tentative no. If you're looking for a nice depressing story and can stomach the strange guard AI and hitboxes, then this game is for you. But honestly, you really can't appreciate a good depressing story without some happiness and things going right to put the misery into context. If everythings goes wrong, sure that's more fuel for drama, but it gets harder and harder to stay invested if you just know it's not gonna turn out ok. Perhaps I'm wrong and too idealistic, but I get my entertainment from games by seeking a sense of accomplishment. Without that feeling of triumphing over adversity, even if its at a great cost and even if it's not as grand as it should or could have been and EVEN IF it's not or the better that you succeeded, then the game loses its entertainment value to me and I come out of it feeling worse for the wear.

I'm going to try and be constructive here and honestly I went into this game with an open mind, but it is a total let down. People who compare this game to System Shock, Deus Ex or Dead Space don't know what they're talking about. Solarix is a Science Fiction game with a Cyberpunk & Horror theme, that is where the similarities start and end.

This is a terrible mix of stealth, FPS and horror where you will spend 90% of the game crouching to avoid near sighted enemies who almost humorously go into an alert state from a single footstep the moment you leave the crouching position.

There is no customization or character skills, no inventory management and I counted all of 2 jump scares in the entire game. There is a total of 3 weapons, 1 of which is non-lethal and rarely works due to poorly coded hitboxes and the other 2 you're given very little ammo for. Lastly every single objective consists of going here or there, flipping switches and finding access cards.

Visually it looks like something from a decade ago, though maybe this was done ironically? And it is often choppy and stuttering for no apparent reason even on an i7 and 780ti.

I would call this a somewhat polished early access game at best. It supposedly has a length of about 7 or 8 hours, though I finished it in half that time even with numerous restarts due to glitches and bugs. There is a boring storyline here about a virus, engineers, corrupt AI systems, etc, with little to no character development and just on the whole everything feels very sloppy and unpolished.

I can see these guys (the developers) are fans of actual good games like System Shock 2 and so forth and you can see their influences, but Solarix can't even hold a candle to those games, try as it might.

Full video review:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5a5c35N727k

(Türkçe inceleme yazının devamında)

English:

As a fan of horror games, I bought this game soon after I discovered it on Steam. It has a dark, sci-fi setting where you need to figure out what happened that killed some of the people around you and turned others mad. While you can use your weapons or your shock device to kill or incapacitate enemies, stealth is what rewards you the most and what you should stick with to enjoy the horror aspect of the game. Besides, you won't have the ammo to shoot through every danger you encounter. If you're into exploring dark hallways with a flashlight in hand and paying attention to the sounds/noises to detect threats, this is the game for you.

As with any other game, Solarix has its downsides, too. For instance, you can sometimes have a hard time finding your way while searching large areas for your objective without a compass or map. Enemy AI could use some improvement and the areas you can't reach can be made more disctinct by re-positioning nearby objects to block that path. However, the best thing about the game is that the devs listen to the playerbase and roll out patches according to the feedback they receive.

Those who like sci-fi/horror genre should try out Solarix in my opinion and give feedback to the devs to make it even better.

Türkçe:

Korku oyunları hayranı biri olarak, Solarix'i Steam'de keşfettikten kısa bir süre sonra aldım. Karanlık, bilim kurgu temalı oyunda, etrafınızdaki insanların bir kısmını öldüren, diğerlerini delirten şeyin ne olduğunu anlamaya çalışıyorsunuz. Silah veya şok cihazıyla düşmanları öldürmek ya da bayıltmak mümkün olsa da oyunun korku yanından keyif almak için en faydalı ve en tercih etmeniz gereken yöntem gizlenme olarak öne çıkıyor. Zaten silahla tüm tehlikeleri yarıp geçecek kadar merminiz olmayacak. Karanlık koridorları elde fenerle keşfetmeyi, seslere dikkat ederek tehlikeleri sezmeyi seviyorsanız, bu oyun size göre.

Her oyunun olduğu gibi Solarix'in de eksikleri yok değil. Mesela hedeflerinizi ararken bir pusula ya da harita gibi yol gösterici olmadan geniş alanlar tararken bazen kaybolmak mümkün. Yapay zeka biraz daha geliştirilebilir, erişilemeyecek bölgeler eşyalarla kapatılarak daha belirgin hale getirilebilir. Bir de oyundaki hikayenin bir kısmı ses kayıtları ya da evraklarla değil de sinematiklerle aktarılsaydı büyük bir artı olurdu. Bütçeyle ilgili bir durum olabileceğini düşünüyorum. Öte yandan oyunla ilgili en iyi şey ise yapımcıların oyuncu kitlesini dinleyerek aldıkları geri bildirimlere göre yama çıkarmaları.

Bilim kurgu/korku tarzını sevenler bence Solarix'i denemeli, oyunu daha da iyi hale getirmek için fikirlerini yapımcılara iletmeliler. Türk yapımcılara vereceğimiz desteğin, yeni Türk oyunlarının çıkmasına yardım edeceğini düşünüyorum. Oyuna Türkçe yama çıkacağı söyleniyor, onu da söylemeden geçmeyeyim.
Aşağıdaki linkte Solarix oyunu için videolu incelememi bulabilirsiniz.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNwbAB3QjkQ

Well... That was great experience. I haven't played a horror game like that for a long time. It has nice graphics and very interesting story. I felt playing Dead Space when i started to play Solarix first. But then i realise. It was deeper than DS. And lastly, it doesn't look like an indie game. Just play it, you won't regret it.

Edit: Now with the version 1.1 many bugs fixed! Thanx the devs!

Solarix has a deep lore and simplistic stealth system.

If you actually put in the time and complete this game the story has unpredictable turns and I highly recommend reading all materials as there are some serious secrets in this game which provide you more knowledge behind both the disaster and the protagonist.

The voice acting is professional and clear, something hard to find in indie games. You actually feel emotion from the vocals rather than a standard monotone voice. You feel like you know the personalities of Betty, AMI and EYE with each conversation uncovering more lore and a deeper understanding of each of their roles.

The monsters themselves are a variation on humanoids therefore not providing the full horrific feel which the developers are trying to pull off however the musicality is spot on for a horror game especially when entering a new area or turning a corner :).

The game astetics are wonderful, although the maps are linear. In terms of the objectives however, you do feel that the areas are open ended.

I played this game the first time on the hardest difficulty and in my opinion it was not too difficult, there are some areas which may take several attempts but the AI's tracking patterns become familiar therefore being able to avoid them becomes simple if you are patient. I would have liked it to be more challenging when there are difficulties involved.

The AI itself is not the most intelligent but when they do spot you their melee is unavoidable due to the flinch you take, in other words, if you get spotted you are most likely dead.

The weapons, shocker, pistol and shotgun are useful but ammunition is limited however this game is supposed to be played stealth not run and gun, if you do run and gun you will just get frustrated.

With the 1.2 update the developers resolved a lot of issues, bugs and complaints from their audience, you still need to crouch 90% of the time but at least you move faster. There are some areas in the maps which have invisible walls which seem like they can be passed and some boundary issues but no game is perfect.

In my opinion the cost of this game may be a bit pricey as the game can be completed within 5 hours with little replay value once you have discovered the plot.

I don't want to give too much away, but with clear cut environmental graphics, chilling music, a deep story and professional clear communications via Betty, EYE and AMI I do recommend the game.

Please see the video review here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBzOhjBKPC8 related to our YT Channel for more information regarding Solarix.

Solarix is a superbly atmospheric sci-fi horror game made by a dedicated crew who continue to support and update the game at the time of writing. What really grabbed me about this game after watching the trailers was the setting, atmosphere and overall uniqueness. It did not dissapoint.

If you are a fan of any of the older games like System Shock 1 & 2, Thief etc I think you will really appreciate the old-school feel this game provides, which I have not been able to find in any other game for years.

Stealth is definitely encouraged and the action is carefully limited, so it does not detract from the constant sense of threat. The story slowly unfolds and evolves into a suitably dark tale :)

I haven’t played a good horror game for a long time! Since Outlast actually but everything changed! Everything changed when I tried Solarix, a game created by Pulsetense Games and published by KISS ltd! Solarix is a science-fiction horror game featuring open-ended levels for both combative and stealth-focused playstyles. The devs have managed to combine old-school sci-fi horror with next-gen style and graphics.


The story follows an electrical engineer desperately fighting for his life, after an infection wipes out an interstellar research station. He must contain the disease, battling both the remnants of the crew and his own fracturing mind. The goal of the devs is also to go beyond jump scares and cheap thrills. Solarix is about a world that overpowers you with unease, insecurity, and desperation, forcing you to confront your own role in the horrors to come. Solarix is definitely one of the good representatives of the horror genre games.

It features a lot of jump scares, like for example that zombie in the window that really scared the hell out of me in the beginning of the game. Another aspect I loved is the whole atmosphere the game creates. Dark, full of horror aspects but everything has such a unique feeling at the same time. Moreover, another aspect worth mentioning is that I liked the balance between stealth, FPS and horror.

Basically it is up to you to choose how you are going to play the game! Are going all stealth? Avoiding your enemies and try to hide in the darkness or just kill everyone? It up to you!

Also, a strong positive of the game is definitely the storyline. You try to understand what happened? Who are you and what you have to do to survive! However there are some negative aspects I should mention! Since I reviewed the beta version of the game! There were bugs in the gameplay and the music. Also, sometimes I felt a little bit lost inside the levels, I didn’t know what to do or go! Another thing that it should be improved a little bit is the dialogs. They should introduce better the characters to the player and who they exactly are and their role in the game. But that creates a sense of mystery which is great and you eventually learn more about them as you continue your journey.


To sum up, this game is a lot of fun, scary and delivers an incredible gameplay experience! Totally recommended it by me to all horror and sci-fi game lovers out there!




Verdict: 8/10

+ Atmosphere
+ Jump scares
+ Balance between stealth, fps and horror but play your way at the same time
+ Storyline


- A lot of characters in the game are left without a proper introduction to the player at first. Who they are etc...but that creates a mystery aspect since we are learning more as we play the game about them

Although there is some problems with monsters animations, atmosphere is creepy and and if you are fan of old-school stealth games you'll like this game. This is not like recent horror games where it relies on jump scares but rather the creepiness factors comes from mood and story. If you really pay attention to the story, the whole game will be more meaningful and fun just like in system shock and dues ex series. However, keep in mind Solarix is not "deep" like system shock series but in this age of copy-pasted survival-minecraft games, Solarix is refreshing and is as old-school as it can get. If you really dig solid sci-fi experience, It is totaly worth the money for 20 usd. Also there have been three patches already and A.I is getting better and better with every patch. Although there weren't any A.I bugs after patch 1.2, developers released another patch to make new additions to the A.I, which sounds good.

So, for starters, this game is almost exactly what the developers describe it as. An old school horror game (With actual horror) with a great sci-fi feel that, should the develpers decide, could become part of a larger series. Yes, the lore of it is just vague yet vibrant enough to fulfill the wonder that is curiosity. The game does exactly what a horror game should, like Outlast or Alien: Isolation which is keeping your teeth clutched in curiosity to find out, yet biting so hard that at the first sign of something terryfing, crack goes your molars. Although that is an exageration, some levels are scarier than others.

During the begginging of the game, from levels 1-3, the game is more puzzle than horror. Like the fear is put on as a dress and the human is an adventure. That may be judging the book by the cover, but in most horror games, the mechanics are puzzle or action. The developers were keen enough to put the better before the bad. Even later, you can still call the game an adventure game, where as Dead Space was action with horror and puzzle side points, Solarix is an adventure and horror hybrid with action and stealth tacked on.

Yes, action and stealth happen to be the tacked on bits in this game, but niether are actually bad. I spent most of my time and experience in a lower formed version than what is out now, that is saying that I dealt with more bugs and glitches than the average player. Stealth was always functional, as was the action (Shooty, shooty, taze, taze), but that isn't to say there weren't undefined facts. First, the very primier enemy you face is based on both hearing and vision. So you have to walk slowly and hide in the deep shadows. That's actually pretty smart and sensible. The second enemy is very ill defined though. It's defined by it's looks and lore, but not by any attributes or feature, as in "What is or isn't there?!". It's a zombie like enemy, walking in random patterns and always groaning. so you'd think from the last enemy, maybe I can do what I did with those other guys, but be a little louder, but that's incorrect. It's tough to find more paths around them, but the waiting adds a sense of tension and heart pounding moments. The occurance of being seen by them is an almost scream worthy moment the first time, but other times, it does become frustrating, more and more each time.

How does the action hold up? Not what many would define as well. As I said, I played in a much lesser version, this is to be taken with a big handful of salt, and worse, I can't think of a better way than a list.
1) Shooting is weak enough to feel useless, but it's hard to remeber how weak it is. It's only good against the mercenaries, not the zombies.
2) Throwing things do not damage enemies, but it's all a stealth mechanic, not an action one.
3) Ammo isn't plentiful, early game. The first paragraph description that the develpers give is not true, it's very difficult to get through any level simply based upon action.
4) The action, for myself, created stress from frustration, not stress from tension or fear.

This game is a stealth game, and it should very much be treated so. It may seem actiony, but it's not very. Stealth is how you progress. There is this one thing though, the game pushes you into action. It provokes you, make you careless. There is a character, who should be called Psycho girl I don't want to even assiociate with but there's not off button in my Helmet, whom constantly tries to provoke you. " You're nothing but an animal." "You'd've killed those people if they were in your way." "You can't stop me". All in all though, it's quite a wonderful place to be. It's a lovely game, an even better addition to any horror game collection, right beside Alien Isolation and Outlast.

And in as a Plug, I played it for Youtube as well, you can see what I mean, but there is the problem of some recording issues that happened. Good day, or if you play the game, good night. Bring an extra change of pants. Or a new chair. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USCccr05O_8&list=PL_dXC6EA3yjmdWHqjaGF2rs108-ByRfPe