Playing A Game Strike Suit Zero: Director's Cut PC

When was the last time I played a spaceflight/dogfighting game? According to Glog records, it's been like, eight or ten years. Wow. I can't really say with authority if good games in this genre still get made often; I really haven't been paying attention, since this game type was never at the top of my list. But I'm definitely glad that I gave Strike Suit Zero a shot, because it reminds me of all the things I loved in those past games.

The titular mechanic of SSZ is a transforming ship a'la Robotech: Battlecry, but I wouldn't really call this combat modality the focus of the game. Rather, transformation is more of an intermittent flavoring on top of an X-Wing- and TIE Fighter-styled combat sim. There are fighters and interceptors to chase, capital ships to strategically target, enemy objectives to destroy, and friendly objectives to protect; the comm-channel banter with allies even has all the right space-military trappings ("Copy that!"). The HUD is informative without being overcomplicated, easily indicating relevant targets and current status, and the controls (with a twin-stick controller, anyway) are joyously intuitive -- with the slight exception of some occasionally-frustrating auto-targeting. All the fundamentals are here, and they're all done very well.

Strike Suit Zero also has a pretty impressive space-opera setting, showing inspiration from both western and anime tropes. But the narrative is sort of a mixed bag, with a balance of skilled and awkward writing, and good and bad voice acting to go with it. And some story bits, especially the introductory exposition, are more long-winded than they need to be. The overall atmosphere of the game feels best when you ignore the characters and words that make it up, which is a bit unfortunate.

The graphical presentation, too, has its highs and lows. Lighting and special effects, i.e. space explosions, are a spectacle to behold. But whenever there are breaks in the action, the low-polygon models and low-detail textures are a bit too obvious. It's a shame, because aside from these kinds of cracks in the veneer, Strike Suit Zero looks much better than you'd expect from a self-publishing indie.

Ignoring those imperfections, I'm having quite a bit of fun with Strike Suit Zero so far. Space, robots, lasers, missiles, explosions -- I mean, it ticks all the necessary boxes, without even breaking a sweat.

N.B.: Evidently, Strike Suit Zero and its Director's Cut are fairly different games: the Director's Cut includes additional content, but is also at feature-parity with the console ports, missing some of the original PC version's graphical polish. At least, that's what I've read on the interweb; past its rocky launch period, it's hard to get a straight story about this. Point being, SSZ and the Director's Cut are different in ways that may, or may not, be significant. I think. Maybe.

Progress: Finished Mission 5 of the original campaign.

Rating: Good