I'm a self appointed space shooter lover. I don't even really care what type it is (simulator, arcade, rail, whatever!). I've played Wing Commander (series), Freelancer, Omega Boost, pretty much every Macross game I could (they have space bits!) X-Wing, TIE Fighter, Homeworld, X, the one I can never remember where you pilot a cap ship, even (and especially recently) FTL. And SHUMPs, gotta love Ikaruga and Radiant Silvergun... and Gradius, et al. Love me some space.

So yesterday evening, I picked up Strike Suit Zero from Steam. I figured, for 15 bucks, how could I go wrong?

The game isn't the best I've ever played. It plays very much like Silpheed/Sylpheed (Sega CD/X360) but has an added mechanic with the main ship in the game. It has a fabulous soundtrack and the artwork is quite nice. The story is a little bland in both actual content and delivery but it gets you from mission to mission.

In terms of actual gameplay, I set up my 360 gamepad and was quite content with them. Some parts are a little tricky on the hand (LT to accelerate and then push down LS to boost...) but you can re-bind all the controls. By default the LS is roll and pitch while the RS is yaw (and to a lesser degree also pitch). Weapons feel well thought out and while you can't screw yourself with a poor loadout, there is definitely an advantage to picking the right weapons for the job.

Also much like Silpheed the game suffers from long missions. Very long missions. Mission 3 took me almost 20 minutes. Now I'm sure once I get more familiar with the game that will speed up significantly, also should have more weapon options and ship upgrades. Upgrades are obtained by completing a mission objective that is outlined before you begin. (Such as - destroy all transports (normally optional) get armor upgrade). Scoring and rank is pretty much what you'd expect - points for kills modified by time. You are given an accuracy rating at the end but I'm unable to find its affect (if any) on scoring just yet.

So, if you're a fan of space shooters I recommend giving it a peek. As I said, it's currently on sale and I've been told you can expect around 10 hours of gameplay if you don't go back and try to repeat missions for higher scores. Not a terrible deal really.