Battle for the Sun is one of the worst games I've ever played on Steam. The game's quality is comparable to a bad asset-flip and the gameplay does not make up for the game’s bad graphics. Now, the controls are really bad. When you start to look around, you find out that there’s mouse smoothing that you can’t turn off in the options menu. The aiming is pitiful. You press the right mouse button and all the game does is slightly zoom in the screen. It doesn’t even aim down the weapon like in almost every other shooter. Your character, Dylan, walks really fast, but if that isn’t fast enough for ya, just press the shift key in and he runs faster than Doom guy. The crouch is completely useless, it slows you down to a complete crawl and most enemies’ attacks home in on you, so if you crouch during a fight – you’re screwed! Speaking of useless features, the pause button does not work consistently. I find that the pause button stops working during most enemy encounters. However, sometimes the pause button works during combat. You just have to hope the pause button is in a good mood when you use it. You know that a game is busted when you can’t rely on the pause button to work 100% of the time.
The game may be called “Battle for the Sun,” but “Battle for the Earth” is a more fitting title. The aliens are trying to take over Earth, not the sun. The story copies the traditional Call of Duty template of storytelling: The game starts in a Boot Camp, there’s a general that betrays his comrades, and the enemy is not sympathetic whatsoever. For some reason, the main character, Dylan, is a silent protagonist in game, but he talks during the cut scenes. This disconnect ruins the player’s connection to the story, if the rest of the game hadn’t already done that. The story is around two hours long, if this was a different game I would complain about this, but I feel that this is a good point. At least, the game ended its misery before I ended mine.
The enemy A.I. in this game is brain-dead. They play ring around the rosy with each other, don’t notice you whenever you’re in front of them, and plant their feet to the ground like a Resident Evil main character and shoot you. Most enemies won’t pursue you, only the dog-like enemies chase you. Although, I have seen the humanoid aliens pursue me, but it’s not consistent and it rarely happens. The enemies in this game are aliens and they all look ugly. The green wrinkled-faced alien enemy looks like Golem from “Lord of the Rings” in low poly form. The tall aliens look like dudes wearing Halloween costumes, and their guns are the same size as their bodies. Now, you have to be careful when fighting enemies because if you think they’re dead – they might not. The enemy will get up and start fighting you again, but a shotgun blast will put them back in their place. The enemies also have a melee attack which only works after they hit you two to three times.
Let’s go over the weapons. The pistol is pretty much useless and you’ll only ever use it if it’s your only weapon. The shotgun is the best weapon in the game because it usually kills enemies in one or two hits. The assault rifle is as useless as the pistol since it takes a whole clip to kill just one enemy. Also, why does Dylan hold the assault rifle’s magazine instead of the gun’s barrel? I’m pretty sure the gun manufacturer put the grip on the barrel for the express purpose for you to hold it. I don’t think Dylan is the elite soldier that the story wants us to think he is. The grenade can be useful, but Dylan throws it way too far. The only way that I can use the grenade is when I throw it against a wall and use the ricochet to hit an enemy. You also get a crowbar, but don’t use it – you’ll only get yourself killed if you use it. Every gun and weapon (excluding the crowbar) in this game has ammunition. Don’t worry, you’ll never run out of ammo in this game because almost every room in this game has an ammo box waiting for you. Then what is the point of having ammo in the game? There is no point – it’s just there.
The soundtrack is very run of the mill and generic. Although, the enemy death sounds are very annoying because you’ll hear it over and over again. The gun sound effects are also stock quality. And don’t get me started on the voice acting. Battle for the Sun’s voice acting is on par with the acting in a school play. Everybody talks and moves like they got a stick up their ass, and somehow they are bored by this painful fact. Or in other words, the voice acting is terrible.
In conclusion, don’t buy this game - That money would be better spend elsewhere then on this waste of time. I’m giving this game a 2/10.
