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[Sober]

Yeah, even with the bigger target arrow and distance counter, it probably should've been rendered in yellow or something to stand out, especially when you have like two dozen arrows in every direction.

Which is odd, because subsystems on larger ships have their own unique symbol.

 

[Sinatar]

I think I might know the root cause of the difficulty complaints. The game is clearly designed around Mouse/Keyboard as you have a free aiming cursor with the mouse. Aka you just point and click to fire ala freelancer.

With a joystick/pad the crosshair is locked in the middle and you have to maneuver your ship into position to fire (ala old school proper space sims) thus making it much harder to actually kill stuff.

So yea, play with M/KB.

Some eyecandy:

 

[Felix Lighter]

Thanks for the tip. I was just going to go straight to my controller for this but I'll try out keyboard and mouse.

 

[Alexios]

That makes me less inclined to go for keyboard and mouse actually, since that type of combat was dull as hell in Freelancer, even if you can be super effective with it. Playing it like that is not my idea of fun. But I guess if the game continues to be this underwhelming I could try that to at least finish it. I haven't had difficulty issues yet though.

 

[Corto]

I'm sort of stuck in the first mission (Defend the Platform). I've destroyed all the attackers and I approach the Orbital 17 as I have a propmt to do so but nothing happens and there's no cue from the game to what to do next. It will be something pretty straightforward but I'm completely lost...

 

[Sinatar]

I'm sort of stuck in the first mission (Defend the Platform). I've destroyed all the attackers and I approach the Orbital 17 as I have a propmt to do so but nothing happens and there's no cue from the game to what to do next. It will be something pretty straightforward but I'm completely lost...

Sounds like a bug, it should just end the mission at that point.

 

[Sober]

I think I might know the root cause of the difficulty complaints. The game is clearly designed around Mouse/Keyboard as you have a free aiming cursor with the mouse. Aka you just point and click to fire ala freelancer.

With a joystick/pad the crosshair is locked in the middle and you have to maneuver your ship into position to fire (ala old school proper space sims) thus making it much harder to actually kill stuff.

I got used to the controller pretty quickly, especially after they give you the machine gun. It pretty much has a cursor of your entire screen, as long as you are within 500 metres and facing an enemy ship, it'll do damage. Strips shields super easy and will whittle down an interceptor pretty quick. Or you can do that and switch back to the energy gun and chase and shoot their hull. But if KB/M is like Freelancer style shooting I can see why it would be so damn easy.

Didn't find it that hard to be honest unless I was purposely charging a capital ship with the starting fighter.

 

[Corto]

Sounds like a bug, it should just end the mission at that point.

Just restarted the mission and all went fine. It seemed to be just a bug, yes. Also I'm on team keyboard and mouse on this one. But I'll try to increase the sensitivity of the controller to see if it feels any better. The only problem with the KB/mouse combo is that the weapon reticule being free on the screen feels a bit weird, breaking the immersion. Hmmm. I'll need to experiment a bit further.

 

[Bombless]

Played just until the end of the 3rd mission. I can't really comment on the difficulty this early but I'll say I died twice so far and I guess both were my fault : hovering above a frigate to better shoot it down (guess who won) and blowing up half a dozen torpedoes at point blank range (more about that below). I looked around a bit but didn't see a difficulty setting.

KB/Mouse is definitely the best control scheme for me. While it is reminiscent of Freelancer I do not believe it is as boring to fly as in that game. The weapon swaps / complementarity (gun/plasma, lockons/rockets) and missile dodging spice things up a bit (regarding that, did i notice points being given for missile evasion?)

I did get a crash at the end of the 2nd mission, had to restart the game and replay it entirely.

All in all I can't wait to get off work so I can return aboard my Strike Suit and blow up fools!

About the torpedoes : at one point in mission 3 I felt like i was reliving the

Spoiler

nuclear missiles attack on the PLANTs

in Gundam Seed, shooting down torpedo volleys after torpedo volleys with guns/swarms. I got so much into it that I flew at the following wave then to the next one, until I got right next to the corvettes and blew myself up. Best death ever!

Looking forward to getting off work and doing the mission the Eurogamer guy rages so much about.

Edit : The UI does get hard to read in regards to target location once you have many enemies around you. The distance indicator which is supposed to differentiate your target from the other arrows seems to blend in with the rest.

 

[Cystm]

I despise training missions, but I understand why they are needed.

The second mission picks up nicely, and I only wish that beauty of a skybox was fully animated. So far so good.

 

[Neverwinter27]

I wish this was an MMO

 

[AlphaProspector]

Taking the chance that the Steam update closed the game on me (god dammit, Steam, stop updating, not today!) to write my initial impressions:

The game has indeed some jerky performance at the busiest moments but it ran pretty damn solid for me otherwise and my comp scratches the minimum requirements. Got to the Strike Suit mission after clearing the previous ones on my first attempt. Bless that shield-draining machinegun, man. The hours and hours poured on Starlancer, Freelancer and Freespace 2 paid off.

Then I got the Strike Suit. And then, BECAME GOD. And this song began: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73dc1D8YHBg

Ok, it wasn't like that. It was disorienting as hell at first, the controls get freaking crazy but once I got the hang of the scan button I was shooting down 15 interceptors with the missile swarms and a little more with the machineguns and side-stepping flak like a boss.

I did the mission where you have to defend the Arcadia (the 4th) and it was definitely easy. You do have to pay attention to the fact that you need to pull suicide runs on the cruisers and blow up their beam cannons fast. Like, really fast. That Arcadia is made of paper. Did exactly that: blew up 3 in ship mode, boosted away to the other cruiser, transformed into mech and blew the other cannons with the guns. Boom goes the dynamite. The rest is anecdote. Pity about not being able to use missiles in that mission. Plenty of dog-fighting though.

My only complaint is that there should be better lock-on feedback and target cycling. Don't fix what ain't broken: the rectangle reticules of Panzer Dragoon/Ray Storm/Ray Crisis/Omega Boost (which appeared from 3/4 of the screen and closed into the target) worked fine because they also gave a sense of depth/location at what you were locking on. Here, those small red circles don't do much to avoid wasting 20 missiles on a single target. =/ Omega Boost had this neat feature where if you reached max damage with the missiles (say, 2-4 missiles per interceptor/small enemy) it would stop painting a target and keep adding locks to the others. Maybe they can patch that in.

Target cycling seems to be based upon distance? For example, I can't preemptively lock on a cruiser specific turret unless I'm facing it and close enough to do so. Those are my only complaints so far.

 

[Cpt Conifer]

I think I might know the root cause of the difficulty complaints. The game is clearly designed around Mouse/Keyboard as you have a free aiming cursor with the mouse. Aka you just point and click to fire ala freelancer.

With a joystick/pad the crosshair is locked in the middle and you have to maneuver your ship into position to fire (ala old school proper space sims) thus making it much harder to actually kill stuff.

I noticed the fixed reticule in the demo vids and dropped a message at their website asking them to implement a bounding box for more free aiming (like the Lost Planet series). Guess they did not hear me. I can't buy it after hearing this.

Bounding boxes are wonderful tools for control. I wish more shooters would pick up on this. Even first-person shooters; I would loved to have some of the free aim with a controller that they make available when use a PSMove to control Killzone 3.

 

[Aaron]

I noticed the fixed reticule in the demo vids and dropped a message at their website asking them to implement a bounding box for more free aiming (like the Lost Planet series). Guess they did not hear me. I can't buy it after hearing this.

Bounding boxes are wonderful tools for control. I wish more shooters would pick up on this. Even first-person shooters; I would loved to have some of the free aim with a controller that they make available when use a PSMove to control Killzone 3.

That's how the game plays with kb / mouse. The bounding box effect goes away when you switch to a controller.

 

[1stStrike]

Game is definitely crashy. Crashed on me after finishing a mission and clicking the Next button lol. Couldn't they have ironed this out before release?

I just finished mission 3 and got the strike suit at last. It's not bad, better than I thought it'd be, but as soon as you transform it's like BLAM half your shields gone even as you're still locking onto shit because everything can suddenly hit you since you're pretty much stationary. It's certainly no Gundam or Jehuty.

 

[PepsimanVsJoe]

It'd be cool if the ship/mech's hitbox was shrunk a bit.

 

[1stStrike]

Mission 4 kinda sucked. It's like, oh hay, you just unlocked the strike suit? Cool bro. Now we're going to make it impossible for you to use missiles and not give you enough rockets to get through the mission. Oh and by the way, your guns are weak as hell against capital ships. Enjoy!

 

[BudokaiMR2]

Omg I cannot believe that this is already releasing.

Seriously it just seems to good to be true!

Now to e-mail the developers and beg them to let me create a Japanese version.

 

[Sober]

Game is definitely crashy. Crashed on me after finishing a mission and clicking the Next button lol. Couldn't they have ironed this out before release?

I just finished mission 3 and got the strike suit at last. It's not bad, better than I thought it'd be, but as soon as you transform it's like BLAM half your shields gone even as you're still locking onto shit because everything can suddenly hit you since you're pretty much stationary. It's certainly no Gundam or Jehuty.

Double tap WASD to dash out of the way, definitely helps. Also yeah, forgot about the no missiles thing in mission 4 so I was wondering why I couldn't go missile crazy while shifted. Still fun. Checkpoints are really far and inbetween but I guess at least they give you full ammo and health again, so there's that.

 

[ultron87]

Played two missions. This is like exactly Project Sylpheed so far. Which means I like it quite a bit.

And the music. Yeah buddy.

 

[1stStrike]

Double tap WASD to dash out of the way, definitely helps. Also yeah, forgot about the no missiles thing in mission 4 so I was wondering why I couldn't go missile crazy while shifted. Still fun. Checkpoints are really far and inbetween but I guess at least they give you full ammo and health again, so there's that.

Yeah, I know how to dash It explains it to you right in the tutorial. You still take more hits, though. The mech form is really only good for hit and runs, but it has such a huge hit box that even with dashing it still gets knocked around.

 

[Sober]

Honestly, if I'm going to go Macross Missile Massacre on someone, I fly in, shift, spam the ever living hell out of any direction, then just literally hold RMB and wave it around. Seems to work wonders. Thank god I switched out of a gamepad. Not exactly sure what would go on there, though I guess they have some auto-lock on feature for strike mode missiles.

 

[Danj]

I saw this game a while back and was excited about it, but then the other day I saw Eurogamer's 3/10 review panning it. Is it really that bad? Is it just because the Eurogamer guy was playing with a joystick/gamepad instead of keyboard/mouse or something?

 

[Aaron]

I saw this game a while back and was excited about it, but then the other day I saw Eurogamer's 3/10 review panning it. Is it really that bad? Is it just because the Eurogamer guy was playing with a joystick/gamepad instead of keyboard/mouse or something?

From the sound of the review, he was more playing by mashing his forehead against a wall.

 

[1stStrike]

I saw this game a while back and was excited about it, but then the other day I saw Eurogamer's 3/10 review panning it. Is it really that bad? Is it just because the Eurogamer guy was playing with a joystick/gamepad instead of keyboard/mouse or something?

My review earlier in the thread sums it up. The game is best with a mouse/keyboard, though it's playable with a gamepad.

There's definitely flaws in the game, and though they can be annoying and detract from the experience at times, I'm up to mission 7 and still enjoying myself. It's fast paced and you get to pilot different ships (and use different weapons) throughout the course of the game, so it does keep the strike suit from getting stale.

The eurogamer guy is the only one that gave the game such a low review - and it's because he was so bad at the game he couldn't get past mission 3. So, he's incredibly biased and wrote that review out of pure rage so it should mostly be discounted as a garbage review.

 

[exmachina64]

I'm sort of stuck in the first mission (Defend the Platform). I've destroyed all the attackers and I approach the Orbital 17 as I have a propmt to do so but nothing happens and there's no cue from the game to what to do next. It will be something pretty straightforward but I'm completely lost...

Had that bug happen to me also.

I'm enjoying it so far. I just finished Mission 2. To my surprise, I'm really loving this game.

 

[Keasar]

I saw this game a while back and was excited about it, but then the other day I saw Eurogamer's 3/10 review panning it. Is it really that bad? Is it just because the Eurogamer guy was playing with a joystick/gamepad instead of keyboard/mouse or something?

Just todays reviewers failing completely at playing games harder than Angry Birds, nothing to worry about, move along and get Strike Suit Zero anyway.

 

[SapientWolf]

Just todays reviewers failing completely at playing games harder than Angry Birds, nothing to worry about, move along and get Strike Suit Zero anyway.

The highest and lowest scoring reviews all point towards the same flaws though. Repetitive missions and stingy checkpoints. But even the worst scoring review suggested that they can patch all the flaws out.

I'm not sure how the SSZ team will handle it, but ZoE 2 avoided that problem by throwing in a ton of boss fights and pacing the game around them. Boss attack DLC would be a good start.

 

[Keasar]

The highest and lowest scoring reviews all point towards the same flaws though. Repetitive missions and stingy checkpoints. But even the worst scoring review suggested that they can patch all the flaws out.

I'm not sure how the SSZ team will handle it, but ZoE 2 avoided that problem by throwing in a ton of boss fights and pacing the game around them. Boss attack DLC would be a good start.

True, and I hope Born Ready answers some of the complaints, but the Eurogamer review still is quite unfair because the reviewer was bad at playing. I completed the third mission on my very first try, even got gold medal on the mission I think.

 

[Weacro]

I played a little of it and I actually enjoyed it. This was after I stopped using the keyboard and mouse and switched to a game pad.

 

[ambientmystic]

Some conflicting advice in this thread on whether to use a KB/M control combo or the gamepad...

I think I'll try out both and see which one works best for me.

 

[Conceptor]

Played through a couple of levels, both gamepad. Switched to cockpit view on the second level and had a much easier time. Also, as mentioned the target colouring is a little hard to pickup amidst the background, but its a minor issue for me

 

[MaLDo]

Target cycling seems to be based upon distance? For example, I can't preemptively lock on a cruiser specific turret unless I'm facing it and close enough to do so. Those are my only complaints so far.

B Button - lock on nearest enemy
X Button - lock on "in front of you" enemy

 

[Manac0r]

Can someone give a breakdown of the video settings? The second monitor option does what exactly? Also does changing FOV give fish goggles?

 

[glaurung]

This game has the laziest, most shitty GUI/HUD imaginable. Everything is lumped into a single row of nondescript, rounded bars that tell you fuck all.

Plus the difficulty spike right after you acquire the strike suit is ridiculous.

 

[Fragamemnon]

I haven't found the game all that difficult. My main beef is with the UI (not enough feedback, information on the mass of enemies not presented all that well) and most importantly I think it's missing about 4-5 quick targeting hotkeys. Target forward and target closest only go so far.

I've been using my trusty Sidewinder Precision Pro that I have used in my yearly FS2 replays for over a decade, but I will try M/K as the game seems more suited to it. Even then, I haven't had much problems with the missions outside of running out of ammo and the base optional objectives being really not matched up well vs. the guns you have available in the mission for the first playthrough (though I will replay these missions later, which is kind of the point).

I am much much more aligned with the 7's and 8's instead of that Eurogamer review. That guy is just a baddie.

 

[Bikram]

I'm sort of stuck in the first mission (Defend the Platform). I've destroyed all the attackers and I approach the Orbital 17 as I have a propmt to do so but nothing happens and there's no cue from the game to what to do next. It will be something pretty straightforward but I'm completely lost...

Same thing happened with me. Tried for 10 minutes to approach the ship in different ways and gave up. Will try again after work. Why release a buggy game

 

[Sinatar]

Rock Paper Shotgun review.

 

[Aaron]

Bug at end of mission two. If you're too close to the enemy ship when it folds out, you end up clipping through and take constant damage while being unable to escape. Annoying to have to repeat that whole section when I did worse the second time.

Little annoyed I have to push both W and L-shift to get the afterburner to work. My fingers are busy enough as it is. I also dislike there's no way to cycle targets in a game where it often requires you to pick off specific enemies or hard points.

 

[BraXzy]

Wait does this not have Co-Op / multiplayer? Looks like something that would rock with multi.

Probably end up picking it up anyway, be good to support an indie company from the UK!

 

[1stStrike]

Wait does this not have Co-Op / multiplayer? Looks like something that would rock with multi.

Probably end up picking it up anyway, be good to support an indie company from the UK!

Single player only. This was never advertised as a multiplayer game.

 

[UnluckyKate]

bought the game for 11,XX euroes and today it's 15.19 euroes on Steam. They must have messed up the first price

Yes ! Also, the game is fun

 

[Fragamemnon]

Ben K's review at the PAR is right on target:

http://penny-arcade.com/report/edit...-perfection-due-to-difficulty-spikes-lack-of-

The checkpointing can be a pain but only minor changes there are needed. Heck, FS2 made you replay the entire mission if you get blown up. There will be a very large split in the reviews between players that understand the game's transformation mechanic and learn to utilize flux and transformation as a precision tool to accomplish things that the fighter mode can't, and those that just jam the transform willy-nilly for the pew-pew.

 

[Felix Lighter]

One of the big benefits of indie developed games is that they often get great post release support. They are obviously continuing to work on the game to add the cockpit and Oculus Rift support, so hopefully they look into some of the player feedback.

 

[Cystm]

Here's a Youtube link for the Launch trailer.

 

[Bombless]

Mission 3 footage :

Spoiler

http://youtu.be/A1fjEmbdEi4

He doesn't use his guns properly (they have a ridiculous short range) but he uses the missile barrage well.

I love this game.

 

[Tokubetsu]

Still haven't got my stick. Gonna cry =/

Ben K's review at the PAR is right on target:

http://penny-arcade.com/report/edit...-perfection-due-to-difficulty-spikes-lack-of-

The checkpointing can be a pain but only minor changes there are needed. Heck, FS2 made you replay the entire mission if you get blown up. There will be a very large split in the reviews between players that understand the game's transformation mechanic and learn to utilize flux and transformation as a precision tool to accomplish things that the fighter mode can't, and those that just jam the transform willy-nilly for the pew-pew.

Yeah, kind of alarmed by the amount of people who've asked me "Is it like ZOE?" because they saw the mech.

 

[Lime]

Just bought this based on the genre, space vistas and composer alone. How's the cockpit view? Is it tacky and simple or is it "immersive" in the sense that the cockpit is actually rendered?

 

[Bombless]

It's not a cockpit view, it's a first person view. They are working on actual graphics for it though.

Edit : While checkpoints can be a bit frustrating they also give you full repair/ammo which can make the next segment much easier.

 

[Lime]

It's not a cockpit view, it's a first person view. They are working on actual graphics for it though.

Damnit. Do we know the date or timeframe for this "DLC"? I'm afraid that I will have to wait to play this game until then, unfortunately