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SOL: Exodus |OT| of "current gen Freespace"

G

Glix

Member
This game is about to be unlocked on Steam. I'm really hoping its going to be good, I've been dying for a modern game that is like the old X-Wing/Tie Fighter games. I couldn't find ANY mention of it on GAF, ever, i did thorough searching both in site, and using Google.

Anyone else been excited for this?

RELEASE DATE: 1/25/12

Price: USA: =$10 GBP: £6.99 EUR: €9.99

Trailer

Official Site

From the official site:

SOL: Exodus is the first downloadable, 3D space-action game that leverages the power of modern graphics technology to deliver epic space battles featuring enormous capital ships, hordes of spacecraft, and beautifully rendered planetary battlegrounds in an action-packed, cinematic presentation reminiscent of TV shows and movies. SOL’s aim is simple: to bring current-gen gamers the action space shooter they’ve craved since the days of Wing Commander and Freespace.

Some Screens:

Newer Screen than the other three:

sol20120117triton02.jpg
[/IMG]

sol1e.jpg


solexodus4.jpg


solexodus2y.jpg
 
A

AndyD

aka andydumi
Just got Evochron Mercenary the other day. I may have to get this too.

I liked the way he was shooting individual parts of that mega ship, but I dont like the look of the missiles and lasers... too speedy and too bulbous.
 
G

Glix

Member
Updated the OP with a newer screen. Sorry thought they weren't gonna let me save the ones from the official site, and its getting HAMMERED cuz of the launch delay.

Impressions would be awesome once it is unlocked! I'm won't be home until much later.
 
S

SteveWinwood

Member
AndyD said:
Just got Evochron Mercenary the other day. I may have to get this too.

I liked the way he was shooting individual parts of that mega ship, but I dont like the look of the missiles and lasers... too speedy and too bulbous.
Click to expand...

The reason why this is going to get wishlisted and have me wait for a sale unless the impressions are just glowing.
 
T

TheExodu5

Banned
Quick question to those who have some experience with space sims and joysticks: do you keep left-right (rudder) controls on the yaw or roll axis of the stick?

Though I would normally map a flight sim as such:

Forward-Backward: pitch
Left-Right: roll
Twist: yaw

I found Evochron easier to control with the following:

Forward-Backward: pitch
Left-Right: yaw
Twist: roll
 
A

AndyD

aka andydumi
I do it on the yaw. And sometimes its easier just to put it on 2 keys of the keyboard and disable joystick yaw entirely. Roll is roll.
 
T

TheExodu5

Banned
AndyD said:
I do it on the yaw. And sometimes its easier just to put it on 2 keys of the keyboard and disable joystick yaw entirely. Roll is roll.
Click to expand...

Well I found when playing Evochron that if an enemy ship was up and left of where I was aiming, moving the stick down and left was easier than rolling and then pitching up.

When I watch the launch trailer for this game, I can see several points where he aims using only pitch and yaw, and that makes me wonder how the joystick is mapped in that case. The only reason I consider doing it in a space flight sim is that orientation doesn't really matter, and yawing is much quicker in space than it is in an airplane.

I guess I'm just a bit conflicted. It seems to work better, but it's not entirely intuitive since it's opposite of what I'd do in a normal flight sim.

I wasn't sure if there was a standard for such controls, or if it was just up to personal preference.
 
M

MattKeil

BIGTIME TV MOGUL #2
TheExodu5 said:
I guess I'm just a bit conflicted. It seems to work better, but it's not entirely intuitive since it's opposite of what I'd do in a normal flight sim.

I wasn't sure if there was a standard for such controls, or if it was just up to personal preference.
Click to expand...

Personal preference plus the "who the hell knows what weird-ass shit you could do in zero G combat" factor.
 
S

ShaneB

Member
Oh man this looks awesome. Wishlisted! At 10 bucks though, it's certainly not outside of splurging territory. Will wait for some impressions.
 
C

Corto

Member
This 2012 is starting to get really interesting. This sudden revival of the Space Flight Sim/Fighter is really welcomed. Fortunately I found a site with a nice price for a Thrustmaster T-Flight joystick... I'm ready!
 
Alexios

Alexios

Cores, shaders and BIOS oh my!
Didn't particularly like FS2 despite the hype so I guess I hope it's better than just fancy graphics FS.

Downloadinding.
 
A

AndyD

aka andydumi
TheExodu5 said:
Well I found when playing Evochron that if an enemy ship was up and left of where I was aiming, moving the stick down and left was easier than rolling and then pitching up.

When I watch the launch trailer for this game, I can see several points where he aims using only pitch and yaw, and that makes me wonder how the joystick is mapped in that case. The only reason I consider doing it in a space flight sim is that orientation doesn't really matter, and yawing is much quicker in space than it is in an airplane.

I guess I'm just a bit conflicted. It seems to work better, but it's not entirely intuitive since it's opposite of what I'd do in a normal flight sim.

I wasn't sure if there was a standard for such controls, or if it was just up to personal preference.
Click to expand...

I think personal preference is a big factor. The other thing to consider is that some space games have complete 0G lateral movement and others only have traditional rudder controls. If there is complete lateral movement then I sometimes map it like you, with pitch/yaw on the joystick (sort of a mouse equivalent) and lateral movements on the keyboard.
 
C

Corto

Member
TheExodu5 said:
Does it have a cockpit view and head tracking capability? (not mandatory, would just be a nice plus)
Click to expand...

As far as cockpit view I found this post on the comments section of the devs diary.

As far as cockpit view, we decided not to model physical struts of a cockpit because they just cut into the player’s viewable area. Our initial concept for the HUD was to imagine a continuous solid glass cockpit with no obstructions, and a holographic HUD projected onto the inside of that. And our primary game camera is in the pilot’s seat.
Click to expand...

http://solexodus.com/2011/08/design-diary-welcome-to-sol/
 
L

Lafiel

と呼ぶがよい
Will keep a eye on this, hope it's good, although the thread title makes me want to re-install freespace 2 already.:D
 
Alexios

Alexios

Cores, shaders and BIOS oh my!
Does this have an intertia switch key? I loved that in Tachyon: The Fringe. We need a sequel of that...
 
W

Waaghals

Member
Just finished the first mission, combining training and combat.

Voice acting is decent, music is forgettable. The game lacks Freespace's flawless dramatic execution.

The game controls great with mouse, and combat was pretty enjoyable, thoug a tad simplistic. This is very much a very streamlined space sim, and I miss some "meat on the bones" in the gameplay department.

Think freespace combined with BSG guns and ship movement. After finishing the mission you get a certain number of upgrade points that can be pooled into Guns, shields and afterburners. This may make the game more enjoyable as you progress through it.

It's way to early to pass a final judgment, but I would say that this game is woth its $9 asking price.

Edit: Holding the right mouse button lets you change the facing of the ship without changeing the direction of travel, this makes for some interesting combat maneuvers.
 
T

teamaxe

Member
I admire them for attempting the genre. But, I don't see a whole lot here that would move me away from Freespace Open.

I'll give it a shot when/if it gets a Mac release.

Also, Freespace 2 is about as flawless as a game can be. It is without a doubt the masterpiece of the genre.
 
Alexios

Alexios

Cores, shaders and BIOS oh my!
Waaghals said:
Edit: Holding the right mouse button lets you change the facing of the ship without changeing the direction of travel, this makes for some interesting combat maneuvers.
Click to expand...
Sweet, just what I needed (but not on mouse). Hope there are giant ships to strafe at full speed while firing and messing up their full lengths :)
 
N

NullPointer

Member
How did I not know about this until now? Instabuy indeed.

Any chance this works with an Xbox controller? Not a deal breaker but that'd be damn nice.
 
C

Crazymoogle

Member
Okay, my impressions time.

It's alright. Feels kind of like an XBLA game. I'd say the biggest problem is that it plays like X-Wing (1993) in that all of the missions I've played thus far are really just "shoot waves of fighters/bombers by yourself" over and over until the capital ship becomes vulnerable for whatever reason.

+ Good controls, any player of the genre can get up to speed really quickly
+ They used basically the same tilt scheme as the BSG FS2 mod. Works well
+ Unreal Engine game, so you know what to expect in terms of performance and options (I think that's why it feels XBLA though - in UI terms it's a paint job on the default UE3 menuing)
+ Good sense of scale, most of the time.

= UI is serviceable. In some ways it's really slick. But in terms of visual mapping and finding mission targets it's a nightmare
= Remapped control buttons; all of the stuff remapped compared to TF/FS2 is really odd, but you can remap
= Unlike FS2 your afterburners have fuel-lockout - hit empty and you can't touch them until fully recharged. Same for guns. Noticeably changes the flow.
= Graphics are okay. FS2 (1999) still looks better on average, but some of the planets and capital ships look alright.

- Story is just...well the best way I can describe it is some random 3 issue, no-name publisher american comic. At best it makes no sense. At worst it feels like you're randomly fighting weird space-asians.
- The dialogue is somewhat awkward, but it's made worse by having the subtitles appear front-and-center alongside JRPG style character portraits. I think we learned from Star Wars to move that stuff to the bottom.
- The sound is really bad. I know they are trying to do a little of the BSG/reality style where you don't hear what's going on outside the ship, but it's very inconsistent. There are tons of little UI bits where you should hear sound, and nothing is there. The other problem with this style is you just miss out on a lot of critical feedback.
- The music sort of feels like you're in a Caribbean restaurant. No tension at all. Combined with the sound, you just have no tension, no flow...it really strips the game down to the gun-down-waves mechanics.
- Missiles fire pretty much directly out front of your ship. Not really a fan.
- The "upgrade" system seems very shallow and arcadey so far. Totally disconnected from the fiction, and kind of makes you wonder why you'd pick anything but guns at first?
- Some bugs? with the mission objectives
- Maybe the hacking system gets better later. But right now it's just another bizarre, almost QTE style system.
 
Haunted

Haunted

Member
Doesn't look all that great, but what can you expect for a budget priced game.

But I appreciate the sentiment, Seamless Entertainment!
 
G

Glix

Member
Haunted said:
Doesn't look all that great, but what can you expect for a budget priced game.

But I appreciate the sentiment, Seamless Entertainment!
Click to expand...

Ya, I want to support the dev, and the genre, and indie in general, so I'm going to bite!
 
Alexios

Alexios

Cores, shaders and BIOS oh my!
Can't even try it. On first boot the UDK installer said a file was missing, but didn't specify anything more than that. Tried to run the game anyway, black screen with the sound of a video or whatever, and none of the usual keys doing anything. Tried to run the UDK installer again, this time it just says MSChart failed to install. I assume that's due to existing newer versions from other UDK games and irrelevant to the issue. Tried to run the game again, same deal. I let it run for a while, eventually I get this. Meh.
gfglm.jpg
 
Xander51

Xander51

Member
Crazymoogle said:
Okay, my impressions time.
- The music sort of feels like you're in a Caribbean restaurant. No tension at all. Combined with the sound, you just have no tension, no flow...it really strips the game down to the gun-down-waves mechanics.
Click to expand...

I was worried about this after watching the trailer on Steam. It sounds like a guy just went nuts with some drums and BAM there's your music.

As for this feeling like an XBLA game, I believe it's slated to eventually appear there as well.
 
K

Ketch

Member
Damn this thread for getting my hopes up and then crushing them. I should just stop being an idiot and buy FS2.
 
S

Sober

Member
Crazymoogle said:
- The music sort of feels like you're in a Caribbean restaurant. No tension at all. Combined with the sound, you just have no tension, no flow...it really strips the game down to the gun-down-waves mechanics.
Click to expand...
Just watched the trailer and it definitely feels like whoever did the music thought he had BSG's soundtrack figured out and just put more drums against drums.
 
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