Buy Solar Struggle

Over the years, I've played my fair share of space games, so when I saw this one, I decided to give it a whirl, since it looked like an interesting game.

At first, I was a bit concerned with how you can only turn your ship and can't move up and down, but eventually I figured out that the game works perfectly fine the way it is and that this doesn't take away from the challenge of combat. You can turn left or right or you can strafe left or right as well, to help dodge enemy fire. You're not going to break your brain learning the controls (I have qualms with games that have overly complicated control schemes, so I like it when devs keep it simple).

In terms of combat, there is a lock on feature that is good for seeing how much shields and health an enemy has, as well as letting you fire homing missiles at your target. Regular cannon fodder type enemies won't pose too much trouble to a decent pilot, but I ran across an ace pilot who almost beat me, who's flying reminded me a lot of how the pilots in Freelancer flew (basically right at you, guns blazing, turn about, then come right back at you again, guns going full). It was a blast fighting that guy and while I'm glad not every fight is like him, it's good to have those guys around to give you something different from the rest of the fighters. I also fought another guy who kept dropping mines out of his ship. That guy wasn't as challenging as the ace, but I had to make sure I dodged the mines and such while still doing enough damage to stop the guy's ship.

The missions are fairly varied. Go here, shoot this, protect that, stop that, etc. There is some voice acting, but not a whole lot. The stuff that is there has a certain charm to it (in a "it's not great, but that's what makes it good" vein).

I'd also like to mention skirmish mode, which is basically the ship combat without the story, with the added mechanic of earning XP to upgrade shields, armor, energy, and your weapons. You fight through a wave of enemies and at the end of each wave, you fight a boss. It's a nifty little mode that I prefer over the story mode, due to the upgrade system.

The graphics are nice for the amount you're spending on the game. They're not going to blow your socks off, but they're not unpleasant to look at, either. Each ship has its own look and the planets look pretty good.

TLDR/Conclusion-

Overall, I'd say if you want a nice little game to mess around with for a few hours, pick this up. My mantra is that I should get 1 hour of gameplay for every dollar I spent on a game and I can easily get 6 hours from this game (with most spent in Skirmish mode, since that is what I like the most).

From the screenshots, I was expecting some nice arcadey space-shooter goodness. My hope was basically for a Star Fox knockoff with better graphics.

Unfortunately, what I got was a janky, poorly voice acted mess that runs far worse than a game of this grapical fidelity should.

The entire game is played on a flat plane. There is no 3-d movement or action. Ships turn very quickly. So quickly it's difficult to do fine maneuvers. Generally, this means that a dogfight consists of either a series of head-on passess, or flying behind a wiggling enemy fighter. It's incredibly hard to see where your shots are going. There's no sort of lead indicator, and your "Crosshairs" are basically useless. Your bullets are your best indicator, and even then, it's mostly "This is the general flightpath of the enemy ship, maybe he'll run into enough of them to die." I found one of the most effictive dogfighting techniques to be to sit still, and just point your gun at the incoming enemy fighters, as that's the only time they really flight striaght.

The campaign missions are frequently interrupted with poorly written cutscenes which basically consist of your ship hovering near other guy's ship. Then you skip them, and you're thrown against a timed wave of infinite enemy fighters. The voice acting comes in here, as the only things more repetitive than the sound of your guns constantly firing (there's barely any reason not to), and the music, are the death cries of enemy pilots. The frequent "Arghs!" and "Oh No!"s are delivered with the drama and gravitas of realizing you put slightly too much creamer in your coffee.

I was hoping the arrival of capital ships on the playing field would make things more interesting. Unfortunately, rather than doing things like take out individual guns, or subsystems like engines, they're just another life & shield bar. Actually, the ones I fought were easier than the fighters, because they're so much larger and easier to hit.

Finally, the options menus are limited. If you're in a mission they're limited to "Quit" or "Don't quit". Anything you change results in the game restarting. You can use a controller, but you get even less fine control. Sometimes the turn keys just plain didn't work, or your acceleration will get stuck on.

I didn't have high hopes for this game, yet it still managed to dash them. For that, bravo.

If you like space shooters and and want something cheap you might like this. Worth a silly stream at the very least.

Well acctualy this is a space shooter. So you shoot things.. in space but....
I did a fews mission, and unpleasant things bumped into my head...
you are some guy that fly around the solar system planet.. and all of thems have an asteroid belt around it....

- Graphics.
They are nice, because space is awesome.. that's the strong point of the game, and acctualy graphics doesn't do everything

- Gameplay
Its just correct.. and by correct i really mean "only correct"
You won't have anytroubles with the control in the game, they will come instantely

- music / sound
Well... the music let's say.. i only did fews mission and.. i droped because of this, this soundtrack is....
i'm not going to say. bad that's wrong... no wait... its bad.. The same song for like 3-4 mission.... and the song is reptitive as hell.. Hope this game have more than 1 mission music..
More than that it doesn't fit at all with this type of game..
Voice well, turn it off... seriously.. turn the voice off !
As for the sound effect. pew pew pew.

- Overall
I'm not going to thumbs up this game because its just a game that everyone will forgot in 2 days. I'm not going to thumbs down either because its not that bad .. there's no horizontal tumbs..... and the price is very decent.
But this game have something wrong ... generaly shooters (ex gradius , thunderforce ect) are repetitive.. but in a good way. this game seem repetitive in the bad way..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0EPk-rZDdE

Pros: The game is simple. Everything is pretty much intuitive.

Cons:
1. The game is simple. There's not much going on, 2 game modes: a simple story about a young pilot, and an endless skirmish, customizeable weapons and systems, which there's not many of.
2. The game is a 2D space shooter, that presents itself as a 3D one. You can't move up or down, so the fights are pretty dull.
3. Absolutely unplayable without a controller, as you can't steer the ship with your mouse.
4. Bosses do not introduce any other mechanics, except for their increased health pool.
5. The story is not something I would come to an arcade space shooter for, still it definitely does add flavor. Not in this case though.

Verdict: Waste of 6 bucks.

If you want proper PvE/PvP dogfights, there are better options out there, some even for free.

So disappointing. At least I only lost 5.95
I miss you 5.95