Preventive Strike

Genre: Shmup

Players: 1

.

Review:

Preventive Strike is a Shmup released on Nintendo Switch in 2019 and ported to PlayStation 4 in 2020. In this game, players pilot an attack helicopter taking down ground and air forces all trying to shoot them down.

The presentation here is fairly good, with some detailed 3D models for everything and a lot of gunfire on-screen at any given time. Unfortunately, this also results in a pretty choppy framerate. These visuals are backed by a soundtrack that can barely be head over the action, which is mainly just a lot of gunfire and explosions.

And I’ll just cut to it right now – this game is absolutely terrible. Your helicopter is absurdly large, moves ridiculously slowly, and the game’s bullet sponge enemies are far too fast and accurate with their gunfire. They will shoot you down time and again and again without you feeling like you could do much to stop it. You can try dodging, you can try returning fire with your multiple weapons, you can try using targeted attacks, and while you may get a little bit farther if you hit upon the right strategy, your runs through this game can be measured in seconds rather than minutes.

I’m fine with challenging Shmups, but I have to draw the line at a game where you can’t effectively take out enemies before they hit you, can’t dodge their gunfire, and feel like you not only have no way of knowing what you did wrong when you die, but have the overwhelming feeling that there’s not really any way you could have done things right. That’s the experience you get from Preventive Strike. Do not buy this game.

tl;dr – Preventive Strike is a Shmup where players pilot an attack helicopter that moves super-slow, is massive, and is targeted by numerous bullet sponge enemies with good aim. You will die over and over again in this game without any sense of what you could have done better, and in fact feeling like there’s nothing you could have done better. This game feels like an exercise in frustration and futility. Do not buy it.

Grade: F

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