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Strike Suit Infinity/Zero


Sly Reflex

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This came out of the steam tombola and it comes out on the newer consoles soonish. Normally I wouldn't do a thread for something only I'm going to end up playing, but this deserves it.

Did you like Colony Wars and X-Wing Vs Tie Fighter? You'll be wanting a slice of this if you did.

SSZ is a space combat game where you're given a set of orders and expected to follow them. You're not a super soldier killing every last thing, you are part of a machine. If you fail to fulfil your orders the whole thing falls apart and can make the rest of the mission harder or even fail it outright. You're going to spend a lot of time dogfighting but there's other orders that mix things up a bit.

You're scored on missions, doing well sees you unlocking medals, medals equals unlocks which can be used to pimp out your fighter. Different fighters have different attributes and slots to fill with weaponry. I've not actually unlocked much yet, but I can see that some are clearly better in some regards than the others.

Controls are a bit hard to get your head around when you start, but you can pitch, roll and do all sorts of fancy shit that will see you skidding and barrelling through the depths of space. It seems hard at first but before long I was able to do trench runs in my ship on big freighters, taking out defences whilst avoiding crashing into debris that seemingly ends up floating about from all the ships you end up scrapping. Getting hit or smashing into something isn't the end of the world, you have a rechargeable shield that can soak up the damage. If you take a hit that isn't absorbed by shields, you have to deal with the hull damage it inflicts until the mission is over. You can use a limited amount of boost and the games warning system to deploy preventative measures from getting hit even more. It's here the game excels in providing you feedback through visual and audio cues that make sure you're protecting yourself when it matters most.

Speaking of cues and feedback, there's a part where you're attacking this big space freighter and it's firing flak cannons into the air around you. The closer you get to it the more interference you get trying to pilot around it, it pixelates your screen like a corrupt MP4 and stimies your ability to pilot as you would normally. Usually I wouldn't like that, but it feels really good here, the ship itself is just an obstruction flying through space otherwise, every time you have to deal with one it feels risky as you swoop in trying to take out a defence to make the next pass safer and easier. Other aids are reticles that you can aim for that react to inertia, speed and angle so that you've some idea of where you should be shooting at far off targets. It's a little feature that goes a long way to making the core concept of the game fun

Other stuff I should probably mention. Graphically it looks amazing. Although it's very minimalist it really does look the part. The music is great, it reminds me of the Mass Effect games composition. The voice acting is also above what I was expecting, I like how it's not just Americans, the vocalisation is very varied. It's hard as fuck. I'm playing on easy because of the games reputation and I'm yet to feel truly in control of something because of how fast everything is unfurling.

I'm hoping when it eventually drops on the newer consoles it comes with a demo so people can try it out. It might surprise a lot of people. In no way is it a top tier million dollar budget game, but the people responsible have crafted an exceptional game, or at least the SSZ part of it is good, I've no idea if SSI is any different.

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I just got the Strike Suit. Now it's turned into Transformers in space. I flew up to an enemy frigate, swapped to the Mech mode of the suit and absolutely wasted everything that was a threat that poked out of the hull. Suddenly those slow moving powerhouses I was having to pick at bit by bit aren't shit. You can just run around them pretending to be Optimus Prime and turning them into space scrap.

It's a good mechanic. It makes you play aggressive (killing stuff is how you gain power to change to the mech) and it also makes you feel like a badass.

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I'm about halfway through the missions now. It's a bit weird that despite being called Strike Suit you don't seem to do that many missions in it. Saying that, I don't think the mission design would really be as varied is it if they didn't lock you to specific ships.

The last mission I did I was locked into a 'Bomber' which was extremely weak and slow but had a special of being able to shoot infinite amounts of highly damaging torpedos. It was also equipped with loads of rockets but had a shit primary weapon. The idea being that you flew within a formation wrecking stationary emplacements while your escort dealt with more mobile threats. I was pretty cool being able to see ships in your peripheral vision break off and start dog fighting around you while you were trying to break apart enemy emplacements. They really got that feeling of working in a team down. I felt pretty powerless whenever my squadron was attacked midway to a target and having to act quite passively in comparison to the other levels was a bit of a different way of doing things. It felt really good to take out the slower targets with minimal fuss though, even if it was squeaky bum time trying to avoid the more aggressive ships from taking me out.

Also in that last mission I think there was a story choice, which is something I really wasn't expecting in a game like this. I remember Colony Wars having story choices but it was more down to if you were capable of hitting certain goals or failing certain criteria.

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Running up to the climax of the game now. The last few missions have introduced elite units that really step up the game, there's so many of them that instead of taking the fight to them you're constantly digging your heels trying to hold them back for as long as the timer has numbers on it, it becomes a game where you're willing to sacrifice shield and hull to assure that the mission goes as it's supposed to. It leads to a few scary moments where you have your proverbial pants down but still have to keep the aggression up even though really you just want to run away until your shields come back up. Reminds me of Halo a bit in that respect in that sometimes you've got to snuff enemies out even though you're moments away from death yourself.

The mission variation is a lot better than I thought it'd be when I started the game, although I be it's easy to be distracted and just ignore orders if you're skilled enough to do that.

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Well, that's Strike Suit Zero finished. It's a really good game, I might have to look into getting some of the DLC somewhere down the line.

I think a lot of it comes down to how it controls, you have all these inputs to take into consideration and learning how to get the best of them without thinking. I dunno, it's sort of like driving a car, it seems really complicated at first, but then you become part of it and instead of stalling and bunny hopping about you become graceful, except instead of hitting a parallel parking space in quick time you're pirouetting through a space battle avoiding explosions by meters, pulling level with an enemy frigate, turning into a big mech and dancing around it as you turn it into a space pikey's wet dream of twisted scrap.

That's it for me on this game, until I pull the other Strike Suit game out. Until then it's over to anyone else that'd like to try it out. You should, it's ace.

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If you can get past the nasty difficulty spike about 3 missions in you should be good to finish the game. It's brutally difficult even on easy, if you look at the leaderboards in game not one person has finished it on normal. I'm the only person out of everyone that owns the game on steam to see the end. I just looked at the steam stats and 5% of people who've played it made it through to the end.

Ironically the last mission is very easy, comparatively speaking and not wanting to drop any spoilers.

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  • 4 months later...

If you get past the really bad spike you should be fine. It takes a while to get used to how everything controls but once everything clicks you'll be able to dogfight with the best of them.

I wish the game had some sort of co-op either 1 ship with a gunner hatch or 2 seperate ships, that would have been aces.

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