Solar Winds 1 hit the markets in the early nineties and came under a barrage of titles: Solar Winds 1; Solar Winds: The Escape; Solar Winds Part One…all described the same game that was released and programmed by Epic MegaGames, Incorporated. Solar Winds, as one might be able to discern from the title, is a futuristic shooter with great science fiction themes. It plays from the bird’s eye view.
In Solar Winds, the user will play what seems to be a cliché part in futuristic shooters, a bounty hunter or mercenary by the name of Jake Stone.
Solar Winds 1 hit the markets in the early nineties and came under a barrage of titles: Solar Winds 1; Solar Winds: The Escape; Solar Winds Part One…all described the same game that was released and programmed by Epic MegaGames, Incorporated. Solar Winds, as one might be able to discern from the title, is a futuristic shooter with great science fiction themes. It plays from the bird’s eye view.
In Solar Winds, the user will play what seems to be a cliché part in futuristic shooters, a bounty hunter or mercenary by the name of Jake Stone. While completing several seemingly run of the mill jobs, Stone begins hearing some scuttlebutt about a race of aliens from an unidentified world. According to his sources, the government of his
very own planet have formed some sort of secretive pact with these extra terrestrials, which piques Stone’s curiosity and pushes him to investigate further on his own. What does his poking around turn up? A full blown conspiracy involving several other solar systems and the imprisonment of what was thought to be the three most hostile races of beings in the galaxy. Stone needs to find out what is really going on with the conspiracy, and it will be a dangerous road he travels.
The user does have the freedom to float around the solar system and shoot at whatever he wants, but the overall plot is very linear and quests have to be completed and clues need to be located before new ones will reveal themselves. Unfortunately, sometimes the user could be floating aimlessly around the solar system forever without accomplishing anything. The plot is so linear that a screw up may render the game unfinishable. That will leave the user with a lot of time to pointlessly shoot things.
Jake’s little ship has a decent little gun that can fire homing missiles and a variety of lasers. The lasers can fire between one and three bursts at enemy ships. The stronger missiles take longer to fire than the weaker ones. The stronger ones are very powerful and can easily destroy an enemy ship and can also destroy Stone’s ship if he flies into their paths. The ship’s shields and speed drive are powered directly by the destruction of enemy ships, so blowing up the adversaries is a very good thing.
Overall, this is a decent little space shooter. It features a good story line, and a lot of action to keep the user further engaged. Beware of the linear plot, and be sure to follow the right path, and Solar Winds 1 will be a great little play.
