Strike Suit Zero Director's Cut - First Impressions: It Controls Better On Xbox One

Born Ready Games has confirmed that they'll be launching their Kickstarted Strike Suit Zero: Director's Cut for home consoles this coming Tuesday. The space arcade game has long-been held in esteem for being prime console-bait, and the time is finally coming for that transition to take place.

Now in case the headline doesn't give it away, this is the first Xbox One indie game launching through Microsoft's new ID@Xbox program. I'm sure some gamers might have been expecting something a bit bigger or with a lot more fanfare, but that's just how it is.

Before launch, Born Ready and the PR firms representing the studio sent out early-access review keys to various gaming sites. We ended up with a review key after another site lost to us in a round of Russian roulette. Too bad for them.

After only spending some modicum of play-time with the game, I can at least say that compared to my play-time with the PC version, Strike Suit Zero definitely feels and controls better on console. That's my opinion anyway.

The game seemed to be better designed for native controller support. Even though I tried playing the PC version with a controller, it required a lot of fiddling to get things to work properly, as opposed to simply booting up the game and having them work properly right out of the Xbox.

Controlling the Strike Suit and taking down baddies definitely seems smoother, more responsive and better optimized than when I first played the game on PC nearly two years ago. But then again, plenty of fixing, modifying and upgrading will do that to a game... well, so long as it's not made by Bethesda and released on the PlayStation 3. *Cough* Skyrim *cough*

Maneuvering around fire, firing on targets and traversing through the mostly empty arenas of space handled easily enough on the Xbox One's controller. This is easily the most important part for a bullet-hell style 3D arcade shooter, because as the difficulty ramps up, you're going to need to be able to move fluently and effortlessly through the battlefield without trying to fight against the control mechanisms.

Now don't take that my praise for the controls means I'm heaping praises on the Xbox One or its gaming capabilities.... because I'm not. Strike Suit Zero still suffered from slight frame drops during heavy battles or usually when a couple of explosions were present on-screen. This never an issue when I played the PC version.

Other than the frame-rate dropping periodically during heavy battles, the game runs at a smooth-as-butter 60 frames per second. This is good news for gamers who may have grown tired of games releasing at 30fps and then dipping below.

Nevertheless, performance has been mostly stable throughout the play-through.

As for the game itself... well, the starting stages are a bit slow in pace and this could become slightly grating for some gamers, as it feels as if it takes a while to really get into the thick of the action. However, once you get past the early missions, the game brings the difficulty in spades. That's definitely a good thing.

We'll bring you more coverage of Strike Suit Zero: Director's Cut as the game gets some more play-time loving. Until then, you can learn more about the game by paying a kind visit to the official website. Strike Suit Zero: Director's Cut is set for release on consoles come April 8th.