The Battle of Sol

Bit Planet has done some very cool things with this game.
Normally, I would hit the good points first, but I want to get my complaints out of the way.
On the plot side, the characterizations of the different pilots can be pretty cartoony, to the point of things becoming unbelievable. Lieutenants have an alarming tendency to order captains (and even generals) around, and it's done with complete impunity. It was hard for me to suspend my disbelief in that area. Further, there is an outsized amount of profanity used by a particular pilot, and it seems to be gratuitous rather than character establishing. (Maybe it's just me.)
Speaking technically, the game does have some nagging, but mercifully un-fatal bugs. The first is that the Ingress/ hacking loop still delivers invalid codes in some situations. It's incredibly frustrating to select what should be the right code, only to have it fail...and be taking fire from a number of turrets at the same time. Also, there's an occasional graphics glitch where a "sun" overlay gets plastered all over the center of your screen. (The problem can be quickly fixed by selecting a different screen resolution, and then reverting.)
Every once in a while, a rough edge in overall experience design makes a glaring appearance. The most notable of these was a mission where you have to save some transports that are dropping through atmosphere. The success/ fail conditions for the mission are not at all clear at first, although the success condition is so low that I suppose you can shrug your shoulders a bit.
My final negative point is that "jinking" in a tough dogfight doesn't seem to be possible. If an enemy fighter succeeds in getting you "zeroed," you either have afterburners available for escape, or you're in big trouble. The only turning option you have seems to be heading directly toward your attacker, which lets them hammer you several more times before they overshoot. Hopefully, you're not in a crowd.
But the above paragraph leads me into what's really, really good about the game:
Energy management.
Really.
There are lots of other space sims that give you the ability to transfer energy amongst three systems, such as shields, weapons, and afterburner. In every other such game that I've played, that energy management is fairly secondary. In "Battle Of Sol," it's front and center in a very neat and satisfyingly challenging way. Especially when flying the Hades(?), each energy reserve is pretty shallow. You have to keep your head in the ETS game, or you will be in enormous trouble. This lends a nice boost to the tension of combat, especially because the basic dogfighting isn't all that hard.
The criticality of the energy management also helps to create noticeable differentiation between the Hades and the Arrow fighters. Arrows don't let you manage energy transfer manually, and the afterburners are "all or nothing," but the regen time is fast...for two out of three systems. The bugbear you get to wrestle with is that shield regeneration isn't under your control - you have to escape from combat almost entirely if your Arrow gets mangled. This "personality difference" really keeps you on your toes, and is a great way to add variety where a whole bunch of different ships aren't a gameplay option.
Another great choice by the developers is the need to master the "slide" mechanic. In other games, the ability to keep your heading while changing your orientation is handy, if not necessarily required. In this game, you'll either get it or get torn to shreds. Giving thought to your heading and then engaging a slide is the only thing that will keep you effective against gun platforms and capital ships. Once you do get it, you'll feel very much more like an ace pilot, especially since you'll actually be able to do some good.
Another thing I like was the (seeming) overall homage to the reimagined "Battlestar Galactica." The UCS missions often feature percussion-heavy music that would fit right in with BSG, and the Hades guns seem to behave - and sound - very much like what you would find on a Colonial Viper. Maybe this was all intentional, and maybe it wasn't...but it's fun either way, and made me smile.
Bit Planet has really done some fine work here, and I think they could build a real challenger to Wing Commander and Freespace if they keep iterating and extending what they've got already. This particular game isn't an instant classic, mosty because it's not deep enough for that, but the seeds do seem to be there.

+Cool space backgrounds.
+Entertaining dogfights.
+Voice dialogs.
+Easy to learn how to play.
+Nice music.
+Ability to issue some basic commands to your fleet.
+Story to be continued. I hope the sequel will be much better overall.
-Unable to modify ships and weapons.
-Very few available weapons to use.
-No much variation of ships.
-Difficult to control on specific objectives. In fact some of the last missions were really frustrating.
-Average graphics.
-Short campaign.
-Unclear how the story goes.
-Although you may give commands to your fleet, there's not much of any help.
I put this game as recommended only for those who enjoy space sims and collect this category of games.
Otherwise, I think that you will not enjoy it much.

Just a couple of things...
There are a lot of great things about this game - graphics, story... lots of potential.
That said, flight mechanics and a couple of other things leave A LOT to be desired.
1) No side thrusters - up, down, left or right. Unless I don't understand the controls, you can't control the direction of your ship... only backward or forward. Even Tom Hanks had side thrusters in Apollo 13.
2) Buggy. Sound goes in and out (I've checked my machine and settings.. definitely on the side of the game). You can travel through ship models... I've designed 3d spaceships for games before and this isn't a hard issue to avoid.
I DO recommend this game as it has a lot of potential. I suggest they model their flight mechanics as Allegiance did, which is considered semi-Newtonian.

If you are a fan of any of the following:
-Wing Commander
-Freespace
-XWing
GET THIS GAME! These guys understand how to make a fun arcadey space sim without mining or economics. There's dogfighting, there's really big ships, and there's space debris. Pew pew pew! Enjoy!

Edit 07/07/2015
Just finished the storyline and the game definitely left me wanting more. The devs are also very responsive, I encountered a bug and it was patched immediately. Another patch dropped today so it is obvious the devs are looking to support this game. Very pleased and looking forward for a continuation of the storyline!
Original Review
This game is an amazing accomplishment because it does something that a lot of these new space fighter games have not done, remind me of the old days. The flight mechanics are straight old school. Many have complained about the lack of strafe but old school games like Wing Commander did not have strafe. Slide however works exactly like it did in Wing Commander 3.
I do have two complaints and please note I have not yet finished the game. The ships, while controlling great, do not feel to have much speed. There are afterburners but they are used up quick, which I do not mind. I just wish there top speed of the craft was higher. My second complaint is that I have only been allowed to pilot two different fighters. Again I have yet to finish the story line so maybe I will get additional starfighters as the game progresses.
If you are a fan of old school starfighters I highly recommend this purchase.

I had an absolute BLAST with this game. Really fun simple space combat game. The voice acting is entertaining. At first I wondered but later I became sure that some is done way over the top as a satirical homage to the old greats like Wing Commander. For example, you can easily tell who the bad guys are because of the voice acting. Also, the banter between your squad mates is very often hilariously cringe but on-purpose. It's one fun game, no doubt about it.

Me like this.
This is arcadish, but fun space game. Devs are also active in forums which is a big plus.
If you're not into hardcore space sims, this might interest you.
Recommended.