It's A Bird, It's A Plane, It's A Mech: Strike Suit Zero
In recent years, space shooters and mechs - once majestic and dominant creatures, loping across the PC landscape with tear-jerking grace - have become all but extinct. They live on the fringes now, only daring to sip from the old watering hole when military FPSes and MMOs are safely out of sight. But now, along comes Strike Suit Zero. It combines all of your favorite things about space (an infinite void that can suck the lungs out of your very chest, pretty stars!) and all of the best bits of mechs (everything) to form a transforming metal titan that seems to be coming along quite nicely.
No, it doesn't seem too terribly complicated, but the sense of speed and scale has my creaky dogfighting joints all atwitter. And I'm glad Born Ready's taken the mech mode into account as more than just a bigger arsenal on a pair of sexy, sexy robotic legs. The idea that it can completely change the dynamics of dodging missiles, for instance, is pretty neat. I'm not sure if the final product will have multiplayer (worry not, for I have sent an electronic mail), but I think players could come up with some pretty wild strategies given those tools.
It is a bit odd that we saw so little actual one-on-one dogfighting, though. I mean, everyone loves nimbly bouncing between ponderous capital ships, but I would very much like to size up Strike Suit when I'm actually picking on something my own size. Next time, hopefully. Until then, let us while away the moments until its vague "2012" launch by lamenting the fact that real world combat will probably never look like a space rave. Or reading our preview from last year. That is also an option.