$20 Game of the Week: Sol Survivor (PC, Xbox Live Arcade)

Like Defense Grid, Sol Survivor is an independently developed tower defense title. Also like Defense Grid, Sol Survivor adds its own twist to the tower defense genre, making it stand out amongst similar titles in the genre. Oh, and just like Defense Grid, Sol Survivor is a good game that is available for a low price on Steam and Xbox Live Arcade. Sol Survivor takes place in the distant future. The galaxy is under siege from an alien race known as The Ascendancy, a group of creatures whose society is powered by the souls of sentient beings. This obviously doesn’t sit too well with the Sol Paragon, an organization of humanity tasked with defending human colonies. You have your pick of one of several commanders, each with their own selection of towers, as you try to defend your colonies from the aliens.

Like other tower defense titles, you use your towers to keep waves of enemies from reaching their objective. However, the enemies travel along a set path, so you can’t slow them down by creating mazes. Although you have towers that can slow them down, you’ll have to rely on the towers hitting the enemies as they walk past. You have a selection of support powers you can use as well, such as an orbital laser.

After you’re done with the single player campaign, there is a selection of multiplayer modes. Sadly there is no map editor, and a game like this is just asking for one. Even so, Sol Survivor is an excellent tower defense game, and at $10, it’s available at a good price.