System: Valve Index, HTC Vive & Oculus Rift
Price at Time Of Review: £14.99
Comfort Rating: Red (Extreme Movement)
Genre: Space Shooter
Input: Gamepad
Best Playing Position: Sitting
Multi-Player: No
Age Rating: 15+
Description: House of the Dying Sun is a tactical space shooter that puts you in the cockpit of the Empire’s most deadly interceptor and in command of the Harbinger Fleet. Hunt down the enemies of your dying empire and upgrade your warships with new weapons and abilities earned during your campaign of terror.
Review: Some space shooters have a serious tone and others have an arcade-style simple one. I found House of the Dying Sun to be somewhere in between the two. At its heart, it is a fast-moving, all-out space shooter that looks amazing and nothing ever feels too far out of reach. But then there is also a serious side to it with extras attached to each mission and enough gameplay manoeuvrability to play a much more strategic game. I, of course, played the all-out “if it moves, kill it” style of gameplay. While I was never going to compleat the missions on the harder settings I had fun playing them on the easy ones.
With some great looking ships and stations, a nice diverse range of environments and some great sounds and lighting effects to go with it all I found this game easily immersive (as most space shooters are) it’s easy to sit back in your chair and believe you are on that ship, you are in a giant space battle. While some people will suffer from a little motion sickness the believability of the game will help relieve a lot of it. There is just something so classic about it. It’s like you are playing a 90’s sci-fi program! There is a lot to see and do here for us “quick blast” gamers, but look a little deeper than that and you will find a strategy based space shooter that will quickly become a long-time favourite hobby for those more committed to a game.
I really suggest people download this game and make up their own minds about what sort of game it is because I think people will play it how they want to. Some (like myself) will see it as an easy to control, all-out action space shooter. But many others will play a much more strategy based game and even outmanoeuvre the enemy crafts. It doesn’t matter how you play it, there are enough missions to satisfy most people and above all, it looks gorgeous from start to finish.
