The Battle of Sol brings epic space combat to SHIELD Android TV
Here Comes the Sun… no, wait, there GOES the Sun
Fast forward to the year 2050 and you’ll discover that the Earth is in a bit of a pickle...in truth it has become entirely uninhabitable forcing mankind to leave the ailing orb and create settlements in other parts of the solar system.
Bad news often comes in threes, though, so the discovery that the death of our sun is coming rather sooner than expected and that humanity is being terrorised by a faction calling themselves Children of the Dawn means the triumvirate of misfortune is complete.
Mankind’s remaining factions team up to take on the new enemy and – with luck and a following solar wind – find a new home beyond our solar system.
In doing so players will get to experience some truly spectacular moments. Not least the scenery. Taking place in our own familiar solar system means we get to visit top spots like Saturn, the Kuiper Belt, Titan and Uranus among others, not to mention entirely new planets beyond our system’s borders.
OK, humanity’s situation is somewhat precarious, but it does mean you get to play around with some smashing military hardware.
Over the course of the game’s 21 missions you will take part in ferocious dogfights, battles between vast Capital warships, destroy an oil refinery, launch an assault on a space station… there is literally no rest for the wicked, or in this instance no rest for the good either.
But it’s the dogfighting that provides the most thrilling moments. Thanks to superb pacing and a super-intuitive controller set-up, circling around a segment of the solar system assailed on all sides by aggressive enemies is quite the thrill.
As fighter pilot Lt Williams you have the privilege of getting your hands on a spanking new ship with a host of smart features. Your main weapon is a repeating cannon which is useful for close up encounters, but due to overheating is useless for simply spraying around in the hope of hitting something.
That’s where your missiles come in which can either be lobbed off at an obvious enemy in your immediate vicinity or targeted on a more distant threat and turned into a homing missile.
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Movement is fluid, fast and your ship is incredibly agile. An enemy targeting system prevents you from spinning around aimlessly in space without a clue where your enemy disappeared to.
Another innovation is the ability to transfer power sources from other systems, for example, if your next waypoint is a long way off you can divert energy from your weapons systems to your thrusters to get there all the more quickly. You can even repair damage to your ship while in the thick of a dogfight.
Best of all is that as the owner of a shiny new SHIELD Android TV, you’ll be able to experience the game at its best. The superb visuals are easily on par with those of the PC version of the game and SHIELD players will experiences all the missions, features and action, all polished and tuned specifically for the platform.
Exciting times.
The Battle of Sol is now available to download and own on NVIDIA SHIELD Android TV for $9.99.
