Shaun Munro reviews The Solus Project…
Released for PC and Xbox One last year, survival exploration game The Solus Project has finally landed on PS4, complete with full PSVR support, and though it certainly offers players a lengthy experience, the game’s highly un-intuitive mechanics ultimately hold it back from being the VR answer to No Man’s Sky every headset owner is desperately craving.
First and foremost, The Solus Project is effectively a sci-fi walking simulator, low on encounters and high on exploration. Earth has been destroyed and mankind hangs on by a thread, desperately seeking out new planets for colonisation, but when your spaceship crashes, leaving you marooned on a remote planet, you have no choice but to unlock the planet’s secrets in the hope of finding a way home.
It is certainly an immersive game, hurling the player into a desolate locale that practically begs them to get lost both literally and figuratively. With alluring skyboxes and an eerily quiet mood from the outset, it’s positively dripping with atmosphere in even its most frustrating moments.
Gameplay doesn’t involve much more than following objective markers, crafting objects and solving puzzles, but the game lives and dies by how much players will appreciate its world-building; it is not a frenetic, slick or violent VR game, but rather a more pared-down, meditative experience, albeit a fairly unsettling one.
Unfortunately, though, players will likely find themselves constantly battling various gameplay elements that almost feel custom-built to annoy. The PSVR version of the game only allows use of the Move controllers, but employs a frankly cack-handed control scheme which never really begins to feel natural. You’ll probably get the hang of movement relatively quickly, but picking up objects and navigating menus routinely feels more clunky and cumbersome than it should do. Some simple DualShock 4 support would’ve gone a long way here.
In addition, the The Solus Project doesn’t merely refuse to hand-hold; it essentially chops your hands off and hurls them into the ocean. What passes for a tutorial is laughably inadequate, and because completing even basic objectives lacks the necessary intuition, the opening hour of the game in particular can feel like an exercise in embittered perseverance.
Still, once you become at least cursorily acquainted with the controls, there is sure enjoyment to be had here. One of the game’s greatest features is its accessibility; by default you will succumb to hypothermia and starvation pretty quickly without seeking shelter or eating, but a difficulty slider allows you to minimise or even completely eliminate these constrictions. It’s just as well, because the game doesn’t have an autosave system, as can prove frustrating the first time you die and find yourself hurled back 30 minutes.
One of the biggest complaints about PSVR’s library to date is the lack of full-fat, content-rich games, and at least in that regard this title has you covered. Depending on how comfortable you become with the controls and interface, the game can take around 12-15 hours to finish, making it one of the longer single-player propositions on the platform to date. While it honestly might’ve benefited from being a little shorter, and the more conventional genre shift later in the game won’t be to all tastes, it’s still nice to see another time consuming effort released for PSVR.
Yes, there are other additional issues – the crafting aspect isn’t diverse enough to be truly interesting; the minute-long loading screens when you die; the irritating puzzles that you’ll triumph over more by luck than smarts – but it’s easy to at least appreciate what the game’s trying to do because there’s not really anything else like it on PSVR yet.
Visually, the game is meanwhile a bit of a mixed bag; the skyboxes are beautiful and nature is rendered in all of its bleak awesomeness, yet up-close objects routinely look quite ugly, and you’ll find yourself frequently glitching through objects (sometimes to your unintended advantage, no less). Neither a wondrous showcase for the headset nor a low-fi embarrassment, it squarely makes middling use of the tech.
As an attempt to bring atmospheric exploration to PSVR, The Solus Project is a decent effort that will nevertheless require considerable player patience. If you’ve been waiting for a sci-fi walking simulator and are prepared to fight the game’s clunkiness every step of the way, it’s definitely worth your time. To their credit, Grip Digital is only charging £15.99 for the package (or £12.79 for PS Plus members for a limited time), which at the same price as the 45-minute Batman: Arkham VR, seems like quite the steal by comparison.
Pros:
+ Atmospheric and immersive
+ Lengthy campaign
+ Some awe-inspiring visuals
Cons:
– Horrendous control scheme
– Lack of tutorials
– Up-close objects are unimpressive
Rating: 6.5/10
Reviewed for PS4 (also available for Oculus Rift, HTC Vive and Xbox One)
Shaun Munro – Follow me on Twitter for more video game rambling.
