Strike Suit Zero: Director's Cut

The Director's Cut version of last year's Strike Suit Zero is periodically entertaining, but clogged up with too much repetition and an unconvincing Transformer ship gimmick.

When it's at its absolute best, Strike Suit Zero: Director's Cut is a brilliantly bombastic, incredibly intense space combat game that's sure to give you wings. Complex controls, a couple of poor design choices, and some iffy mechanics can make it difficult to love, but conquering the final frontier will leave you with a sense of accomplishment that's currently unrivalled on the PS4.

There's no escaping the fact that Strike Suit Zero is a let-down, despite the promise of this enhanced edition. The Director's Cut has fixed issues with checkpointing and, in terms of content, is certainly a generous package on Switch, but the game never escapes the fact that its central conceit isn't satisfactorily delivered upon. With better mech controls and some more time and care put into delivering more varied missions this could have been a great little space combat game, but as it stands it's hard to recommend to anyone other than diehard space jockeys.

We can still easily slap on a stamp of approval for seasoned fans of the genre – especially with no other alternatives on Xbox One – though anyone that has yet to attend flight school likely won't find this to be the most welcoming place to get started.

At the end of the day, folks who enjoyed the original Strike Suit Zero may want to pick up Director's Cut, especially because upgrading on Steam is only a few bucks. Those who never got around to playing but have a particular affinity for space combat, missile-spewing mechs and loads of ship customization might also want to be pick up the game.

Its performance levels make it a bit of a rough ride as well. All that said, its grasp on the genre is solid enough that I still found myself having a very good time playing it. If you're hankering for a classic 3D space shooter you can take on the go, give Strike Suit Zero a shot.

In such an underrepresented genre, Strike Suit Zero certainly stands out and being able to play it on the Switch is very cool.

Strike Suit Zero: Director's Cut fixes many of the glaring issues from the initial release of the game, giving console and PC gamers the definitive edition of the game. The controls will take some getting used to, and in the heat of the intense dogfighting, it is easy to hit the wrong button or lose your target. Word of advice, don't crash into capital ships.

If you have missed space-combat shooters, as they are a real rarity, then you could do a lot worse than SSZ: Director's Cut. The truth is that the director's cut hasn't improved anything majorly from the first game, so if you have it on the PC then don't expect some revelation here as you'll be left wanting. If you don't care about story, odd pacing and at times frustrating checkpointing then you might get along quite well with SSZ. It's a brief, fun and at times utterly beautiful space-combat game, and you get to be a mech...in space...with a lot of rockets. If you just felt something warm inside then give it a punt, but you'll need to balance your love of galactic warfare with a heavy dose of forgiveness.

It's no show stopper, but I appreciate the game's commitment of sticking to the genre's old-school roots.