Strike Vector back with an EX, becomes mechdaddy

Look at this rusty old mechplane. Strike Vector, is it? It's three years old, get it out of here! We have a shiny new one landing on the pad right now. An updated version of the super-speedy multiplayer dogfighter has just touched down, and it's bringing a singleplayer campaign, skirmish mode, bots and some other improvements to the jets-wot-go-fast-in-six-degrees-of-freedom-but-then-crash-into-a-bit-of-wall-and-die-em-up. Yes. Strike Vector EX [Steam page] is the new mechdaddy.

If it looks double-familiar it might be because this version also came out on the PlayStation 4 last year. I haven't partaken in the ‘splosions and zooming of the original game's vectors myself but a man who used to work here sometimes called Jim had this to say about it:

"It's alluringly beautiful, all vast structural sci-fi architecture porn and impossible weightlessness. The sense of speed and the mad splendour of the all-directions environments certainly captures something that most games seem to miss. Even with all the art that's hung on it, it's pure videogame, as if the hormones produced by Defender or Robotron are still pumping through its Unreal-powered veins, giving it some primordial strength over modern, smoother productions."

Fine praise in the bygone days of 2014, before the cataclysm. But he also worried about the low server populations, it being a purely multiplayer thing back then. With EX you can add bots to battles and muck about in a sort of story mode, so that's an improvement that's likely to make this the definitive version. Mech no mistake.

It's on Steam for £8.99/$11.99 (although a littler bit cheaper this week for the sake of release). People who own the original Strike Vector can get EX half-price.