Strike Suit Zero

It’s hard to know where to start with a game like Strike Suit Zero, given that the last Space Combat Sims I played properly were Tachyon: The Fringe and Rogue Leader. Both are games that hold special places in my heart.  It seems as if any space sim that flutters its eyelashes at me is going to have to compete with those two and that’s simply not fair given Tachyon’s stronger leanings towards being an actual simulator (given a simulator of something that doesn’t exist) and Rogue Leader being so arcadey it may not even be considered a part of the genre.

Strike Suit Zero is very much its own beast.  The only real ship management you get to partake in is choosing your weapons before each mission. That’s all.  It’s forsaking micromanagement in the name of fun, and it really gels well with Strike Suit’s gameplay.  You’re dropped into the arena where your mission will take place and given a list of objectives to complete, from destroying targets to protecting enemy ships, and it’s as simple as that for the most part. Sounds like Rogue Squadron, right?  Well the formula gets mixed up a short way into the game once you get a hold of the titular Strike Suit and take to ruining shit up at an advanced level.

Through giving and taking damage you collect “Flux energy” that allows you to transform and make the most of the Strike Suit’s weapon systems and utterly decimate the opposition for a short time.  Don’t get this Strike Suit mixed up with the Z.O.E. style mech suits either, you will not be having interstellar sword fights in your time with this game.

The reason for decimating these people?  They’re Colonials. The nasty kind who blow up planets and fleets and such with old alien relics, so decimation is the thing to go about doing.  There is a story in here concerning intergalactic independence, colonialism, and undercover aliens as victims of abstract lobotomies, none of which really involve the protagonist, Adams, in any meaningful way, but the story here is just a vehicle by which to drive all the cool space action, which is by far the centre-piece of Strike Suit Zero.  So if you’re looking for a deep story or even just engaging characters you’d better look elsewhere.  The cast of this particular piece is rather drab and uninteresting, with the one that’s supposed to be a computer program turning out to be the most engaging one, and even then there’s absolutely no reason to care about her.

Like I say, the story is just an excuse for the action, like we needed one. The sad part is that the story that is here is so meaningless and unnecessary that it does more to take you out of the experience than to pull you in.

Highlighting the action is the visual style with slick, polished war-machines blowing each other up all around.  Even the lasers, missiles, and trails left behind by ships have a kind of shine to them that makes hectic scenes resemble firework displays at times.  The engine’s at its best when you’re in the middle of a pitched skirmish including multiple capital ships on both sides firing torpedoes at one another while fighters zip back and forth exchanging fire, with the rich techno soundtrack beating in your ears, punctuating the action.  It’s quite a spectacle to behold, although it is marred by catastrophic framerate drops whenever there’s smoke on the screen.

It’s at moments like this where you really need to keep your wits about you to survive.  It’s not an easy game, and it has the unpleasant habit of setting every enemy fighter and all of their dogs, cats, and other pets directly after you and no one else.  This can be explained away by the idea that you fly an advanced, and highly lethal ship, but the enemy shouldn’t know that so it comes off as a cheap way of increasing difficulty.  Often when you enter a battleground the first thing you’ll hear is your allies in harmony yelling “They’re going after Adams”.

To balance this the controls, I’m happy to report, are smooth and intuitive so long as you’re not trying to play with a 360 controller (both the thumbsticks control altitude independently, whose idea was that?!) with the default set-up giving you control over the direction and weapon systems of your ship with the mouse and everything else with the keyboard.  As long as you’re comfortable with your mouse and keyboard setup it’ll be no time before you’re taking the fight to those pesky Colonials like a pro.


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