Play as a celestial body in Solar

Courtesy of MTV Multiplayer's spotlight showcase of Solar, I managed to find out about an interesting indie game on the Xbox Live Marketplace. I'm a fan of games with quirky settings and back drops, and this game proved to be one of the quirkier. What other game let's you play as a star which, depending on how you play the game, is actually quite an asshole?

So what do you do in this game? Well, you can just screw around like all stars do in sandbox mode. Zip around the vast emptiness of space, getting planets to orbit you, crashing into other stars, become a black hole, or making intelligent life develop on your planets which will send create space traveling fleets armed with death rays. You know, the usual stuff we all know stars do from science class.

 

Pictured: A jerk

But you also have challenge mode where you complete series of astronomical tasks to make you the most amazing star on the block. Like destroying 20 planets, finding the edge of the universe, or proving creationism is right (score one for the Republicans!). And as you complete challenges, you unlock cheats that change the way the game is played like reverse gravity mode, or the ability to select one kind of celestial body you want to start as (like a red dwarf or a black hole).

A dramatization

At 200 points, it's actually one of the more expensive XBLA games. It would've have been awesome if it had achievement support, but you can't expect that from an indie game. If you want to just goof around and drive the universe crazy with some shenanigans, Solar is probably the only game that lets you do that.

Comic courtesy of Perry Bible Fellowship