Strike Suit Zero: Directors Cut feels like a game that belongs in a museum. Its genre, that of space battle has long since passed its heyday with the only real modern day contenders being FTL and Eve Online, both games remarkable for throwing out the playbook. Even the mechanics of the game feel strangely dated, as they allow the player to turn your fighter craft into a giant robot, which sounds like the extreme cartoonish behaviour that one used to see across the industry in its earlier years. Although you’ll always have the option to ride a none robot ship into combat, if you’d prefer.
But it is hard to resist the allure of giant space robots…
Its plot is also familiar: interstellar expansion led to interplanetary division, which led to war; throw in some alien technology and mysterious AIs and you’ve got the idea. But however recognisable these features are to an era in gaming long past, it’s hard not to enjoy dusting off the old school mechanics and diving into its neon infused space battle, at least for a little while.
Go my team! … Which ever one that is.
With its colourful weaponry and oddly haunting soundtrack, Strike Suit Zero is immediately attention grabbing. The developers, Born Ready Games, intention was to bring back this lost genre to a new audience and they have done so quite admirably. Originally funded through Kickstarter Strike Suit Zero was built to recapture the imagination of an audience who hasn’t seen a single player experience like this in years.
The visuals aren’t as impressive as they could be for a PS4 game however colourful they first appear, with ships big and small lacking the refinement and detail they’re capable of, although the sky boxes that surround each level are stunning. From futuristic Earth to beautiful abstract nebulas, the player is given a unique tour of battlegrounds across the galaxy, although the maps themselves are always the space vast empty space. But however pretty they are, you might spend more time then you wanted looking at them. Levels are typically divided into battle sections which range from small skirmishes to massive encounters, and story driven conversations. These conversations tend to go on for quite a while giving you little to do but float around the empty void waiting for the action to pick up again.
That thing better to be dead, purple ribbon don’t come cheap.
The battles on the other hand, feel like the polar opposite, completely overloading the screen with information, artillery and enemies. It’s a frantic and chaotic spectacle but delivers an satisfying and punchy experience while you zip between enemy fire, selecting your targets and engaging in fairly spectacular dog fights. Occasionally you’ll be require to do battle against colossal ships, forcing you to pick off its defensive turrets to open up its weak points and begin inflicting proper damage.
However, as the levels progress, the objectives quickly begin repeating themselves. Bringing nothing fresh to the later levels, Strike Suit Zero relies almost solely on introducing more and more enemies to the fray, and with few checkpoints you’ll find your health bar and interest slowly begin to grind down.
She can’t take much more Captain!
As the enemy formations begin to expand into swarms, strategy begins to deteriorate for the player, who faced with dozens of targets, has no option but select one to destroy while taking the unavoidable damage from those you can’t directly engage. While in ship form, you have to power to deflect enemy missiles launched at you but not in robot form, instead tasking the player with dodging them manually, something which becomes borderline impossible towards the end of the campaign, making the robots extra damage almost redundant. While getting hit by the standard fire becomes almost constant, requiring you to regularly flee from the fight in order to restore your crippled shields.
… No Thanks.
It’s not to say that this is a bad game. Born Ready Games obviously put a lot of love and attention into making Strike Suit Zero feel like the lost genre of space shooter, but the age shines through. Without much new brought in, its feels like an old game that’s entire length is based on the filling each level with dozens of tedious objectives. You’ll enjoy it at first, maybe you’ll enjoy it at the end, but somewhere between you’ll get tired, and its hard to reignite that passion. It can be exciting to visit a museum every once in a while and see all kinds of ancient wonders, but spend too long and you might just feel exhausted, staring at different versions of the same thing over and over again.
