Strike Suit Zero Review
Game Emblems
The Good
A fantastic Indy game that needs to be re-reviewed after the developers latest patch. Huge changes in game quality.
Winning space battles ain't easy son. Challenging, slick, strategic arcade space shooter.
Strike Suit Zero's thrilling combat and awe-inspiring world make space combat feel like a relevant genre after years of stagnation.
Strike Suit Zero's campaign takes roughly 10 hours to complete your first time through, but there are plenty of incentives for replaying each mission, including powerful ship upgrades and alternate endings. Every mission has secondary objectives that can be completed to unlock new armor or weaponry and these tasks typically include protecting or destroying a particular ship during battle. Having to do so while also working on primary objectives feels like an impossible task at times and the considerable length of most missions ends up being the biggest roadblock to success. However, when you finally manage to overcome the odds, the pay off of stronger armor and a faster ship makes future attempts at completing optional objectives a less formidable affair; a reward in and of itself.
As fun as the combat missions are overall, they’re generally too long for their own good. With combat and action as fast paced as it is, it’s frustrating when a few seconds worth of mistakes wipes out nearly an hour of progress. The infrequency of checkpoints is a big demotivator when failure is so easy to stumble into. When you do fail a mission, it's usually due to a mistake on your part, but there's a chance it's connected to unexplainable spikes in difficulty.
The story is secondary to the excitement of combat, but it’s more interesting than it initially lets on. Conversations rarely pertain to anything other than new objectives and strategic analysis, and there’s virtually zero character development, but once the veil is lifted and a certain pivotal character reveals their endgame, these revelations retroactively benefit the events leading up to that point. There are many instances of borrowed inspiration from fairly well known sources, but the finale lends Strike Suit Zero an identity all its own.
If you have the privilege of owning three monitors and an SLI or Crossfire setup, it's highly recommended that you play with multiple-monitor support enabled. The vastness of space is the perfect fit for such an arrangement, but there's essentially no HUD to be found in the first-person view. It seems like an odd omission given the potential for intricate and immersive renderings of the cockpit, as proven in games like Steel Battalion and Hawken. It's also jarring when the camera switches to the third-person view when entering strike mode, but considering the uninspired view from Adams' perspective, you rarely feel compelled to look through his eyes anyway.
If you’ve got the itch for an adrenaline infused shooter in the vein of Wing Commander or Star Wars: X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter, Strike Suit Zero won't disappoint. While they're occasionally frustrating, the lengthy missions and missed opportunities fade into the background at the end of the day. It's one of the most thrilling, inventive, and fascinating space combat sims in recent memory, and its thirteen white-knuckled missions are definitely worth seeing through to the end, even if they occasionally over stay their welcome.
By
Peter Brown, Editor
Peter Brown has been writing about video games and hardware since 1999. He grew up with the NES and has an unwavering love for retro and arcade games. Though he's a New England native, he's called the Bay Area home since 2004.
46 comments
Woah, 15 meter tall mechs, bad controls, and way too many missiles? Sounds like Armored Core!! Now I can play as Nineball.
Good graphics , mediocre gameplay and very difficult.Also, if you lose one objective you lose several hours of gameplay and that sucks.
one question to developers: "did you actually play the game?" just stop sending millions of missiles and fighters at me!
1 Like this game has " homeworld 2 " all over it... haven't played old school space sim such freespace nor wing commander, but the gameplay is like (a better) macross on ps2, which is a good thing cause i love both of them... a bit of nauseous after a while though. Don't really into space sim but the environment really brought back "homeworld" feel (thank you) , wonder why the game been having a bad review outhere, maybe this kinda game need joystik to be enjoy as many old school space sim, yet have i mention "homeworld"... ^_^ how about making a "homeworld 2" mod for this game, i'll be the happiest man ....
2 Like Damn this game is hard n unforgiving, like Dark Souls, and that is a good thing! :D Support it to make it expand even further!
1 Like Something I've been wondering about every time I've heard anything for this game.
Why does a space plane/mech need legs?
1 Like @TorMasturba There are these things in space called "planets".
You might have heard of this one in particular called "earth".
It would be really hard to get around on said planet without legs, wouldn't you agree?
@wavelength121 @TorMasturba Yeah, because all our ground and air vehicles today on Earth use legs for transport. Logic, use it.
@vunacar @wavelength121 @TorMasturba Dumbass that dont mean bipedal mechs wont be used in the future. we are currently working on different types of 2 and 4 legged tanks and support vehicles that will make traversing normally impossible land with tread based units.
1 Like Playing this game non stop the last three days, its pretty good but it has a steep learning curve which might enstrange the more casual crowd.
The upgrades like mentioned in the review are very difficult to aquire, I've managed so far to get to mission 10 with all upgrades unlocked, but it wasn't easy at all. I almost gave up on a couple of missions, but with perseverence and sheer determination I finally got past them.
The game demands both skill and patience, as you need to figure out how to go about to get to your goal, more often than not by the skin of your teeth, which makes it all the more rewarding when you pull it through.
If you enjoyed games like Wing Commander and can deal with its sometimes brutal difficulty without popping a vein, you should definitely try this out.
Peter, your voice is not that bad, i fail to see why people are knocking this so much.
It is a well informed review. Though i would prefer to know what hardware requirements are needed in reviews that are for PC games.
I just bought this game from GOG.com, until next thursday this game is on gog.com at $4.00 off so 15.99 for DRM free version and it states free DLC when it is released as well.
Probably the best way to go if you want it without the always online problems.
You also get extra artwork , the usual gog extras steam rarely gives.
who the hell let him read that dogmatic, monotonous drivel! Where's the passion!? and where can I get a copy of ELITE!???
1 Like knowing steam this will be on a 50% daily deal in no time waiting for that to get this
@HADES2001 that is the only problem with steam . Far better wait for sales as you know they will happen soon enough.
just tried this game out and am probably gonna buy it. wish it had some mp tho. and if u think this game is hard then you have never played/beat a challenging game in your life
This game pretty much plays like the old Robotech game on PS2 but with slightly better AI and controls. The actual interaction between capitol ships and fighter craft is fun and entertaining. If you like spaceshooters its worth checking out. I picked it up for $15 on Steam but if you wait a while it'll probably drop to $8-10 which I think is about right.
2 Like Does anyone else remember Colony Wars on the PS? I LOVED that game. HD remake please!
1 Like Peter Brown's critique of the game having "Underwhelming delivery" is like the pot calling the kettle black.
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@CHROMEFLAMIN .
lol stop being nasty the Ps3 would easily handle this game. Though the lower resolution would obviously hurt the look of it alot
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@ACWH dude seriously rate this game bad just because it's hard difficulity? really?. try Dark Souls. No Mini map? have you tried the forever awesome Skyrim?
@ACWH maybe they don't like this Genre. people are pretty biased when they review games on sites like these.
2 Like @ACWH sounds like whoever was reviewing that game sucks at playing video games. difficulty spikes? i understand that the controls and mechanics can be difficult to get ahold of. but isn't that fun in it? any spike in difficulty is welcome to me, but this game is not so challenging that it can't be beat. breezing through a game makes me feel like a fool for wasting my money
Cheer up Peter bloody hell! For a 7.5 you can at least sound like you're enjoying the thing :P
I haven't played a space combat game since the PS2 but you got me excited with this review.
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@queuing_for_PS4 No where on their Kickstarter does it say it will be on the PS3, just MAC and Linux later this year. Same for any news source I've checked. I've seen sites that have it listed as a PS3 game for some reason but no information about it.
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