Space Dogfights That Fly, a Kickstarter Dream That Doesn’t

Strike Suit Zero wants to bring arcade space combat back. Born Ready Games developed and published it, and the source lists it for PlayStation 4, Linux, PC, Mac and Xbox One. It shipped for Microsoft Windows on January 23, 2013, with OS X and Linux following on August 9, 2013. The pitch is loud: the clock is ticking, Earth is about to be destroyed, and your only hope is a transforming spacecraft with ludicrous firepower.

That is a good pitch. The game underneath it is a good game, not a great one.

Trailer, via GOG.

Fighter Mode, Strike Mode, and the Juggling Act

Strike Suit Zero is a sequential mission-based game, a story-driven single player campaign where you fly a transforming mecha for the United Nations of Earth against the combined forces of the space colonies. You fight in third person or from a first-person cockpit view. The game will support HOTAS joysticks and Oculus Rift.

The hook is the strike suit itself, and the mechanic that defines it: switching between fighter-mode and strike-mode. Fighter-mode is fast and nimble. Strike-mode is a wall of firepower that turns slower and demands more from you. Energy-based weapons run off a limited supply. Missiles and gun ammunition are limited too. Mastery means juggling the two modes under pressure.

Born Ready adds tactical weight that the 1990s shooters it loves did not always carry. That is the whole argument for Strike Suit Zero’s existence, and it mostly holds up.

Junji Okubo’s Ships and Paul Ruskay’s Score

The production has real pedigree behind it. Ship designs come from Junji Okubo, known for mecha and ship work on Infinite Space. The soundtrack is by Paul Ruskay, who composed the original Homeworld score. Both show.

The source lists the game’s inspirations as Elite and related franchises: Homeworld, Freelancer, Colony Wars, Star Wars, Gundam, Macross and FreeSpace. The game is built on a proprietary engine. It reached its $100,000 Kickstarter goal on November 2, 2012, and a spin-off, Strike Suit Infinity, followed in April 2013.

The battles are designed so they do not revolve entirely around you. A full simulation of allied and enemy forces runs in the background while you chase specific objectives. You are one small part of a much larger conflict, and the game wants you to feel that.

The Score, and What It Is Worth

Strike Suit Zero’s published critical score sits at 6.9 out of 10 across an eight-outlet aggregate. That number is about right, and it is right for a reason the game’s own marketing never quite admits.

The ambition is genuine. Reviving a genre by adding a real tactical layer is a better idea than reviving it by copying it. The strike-mode juggling gives every fight a decision, and the limited ammo keeps you from solving problems by holding down the trigger. The background battle simulation is the smartest thing here: it makes the war feel bigger than your cockpit without pretending you are not the one who has to win it.

But a 6.9 is the score of a game that is more interesting than it is satisfying. The mode-switching is a demand, not a pleasure, and the campaign asks you to make snap decisions on instinct while a clock runs down. That is the design. It is also exhausting in a way that the best arcade shooters never were. The genre’s classics were fast. Strike Suit Zero is fast and strict.

The pedigree is real, and the ships and score carry it. The proprietary engine does its job. But the game never quite escapes the shadow of the franchises the source lists as its inspirations. It reaches for Elite and FreeSpace and lands somewhere short of both. That is the paper’s read, not a fact the source states.

Worth playing for anyone who misses the genre. Worth studying for anyone who wants to bring it back. Not worth calling a revival on its own — that is the reviewer’s opinion, not a claim the source makes.

Strike Suit Zero Scores 6.9: A Good Space Shooter, Not a Revival

Born Ready Games · game review · Indie Games · mecha games · space combat games · Strike Suit Zero