Suicide Squad: Special Ops: Video Game: Short Review (Android Mobile)

     It isn't often that free-to-play games are good, and even less frequently that a movie tie-in is good, let alone the generally doomed combination of a free-to-play movie tie-in, but somehow, against all the odds, Suicide Squad: Special Ops is really good.  It plays with surprising competency, and even more surprisingly, with it does it all with absolutely no ads or IAPs whatsoever.

     Suicide Squad: Special Ops is an oddity.  It's a mobile first-person arena shooter of sorts letting you play as 3 of the Squad members- Deadshot, Harley Quinn, and Diablo- and pitting players against wave after wave of increasingly difficult hordes.  It has an odd mechanic where the standard attacks of the 3 playable characters happen automatically when enemies are in front of them.  So players generally only move and aim, with normal attacking just occurring when in range of enemies.
     Each of the characters have a meter which builds that allows for their respective special abilities.  They all feel unique in their own ways and can be upgraded after killing so many enemies- things like more health or an increase in damage.

     The game does have a couple downsides though.  It is a survival rogue-like, meaning if you die you lose all the powerups and opened areas and have to start all over.  I suppose that is an apt model for the Suicide Squad.  One thing that makes this fact more harsh is the fact there isn't a true pause or save checkpoint to pick up from. You HAVE to play until you die.  It isn't a big negative unless you play for long amounts of time a lot, but it does get to be an annoyance when you make it really far and have to quit or do something else.
     Another issue that bothered me a bit was that the characters are definitely in need of some balancing.  Harley is easily the least useful character relying on primarily melee attacks and a revolver, with a frenzied melee special puts her into direct damage consistently.  Deadshot has a decent range and a great special ability, but has a problem with needing to find ammo refill boxes frequently.  Then there's Diablo, who is the most versatile of the 3.  He's got good damage and range with his flames, and his special move unleashes a 360 degree fire blast that is extremely useful as you progress into huge groups of very strong enemies.

     It's been weeks since I started playing this, and it's still fun as hell.  If you enjoyed the movie, I'd definitely recommend giving this a chance if you haven't already.  Developer Sticky Studios miraculously made this game in a mere 3 and a half months, and it came out better than a vast majority of games with much longer development times.  They've raised the bar for a creative use of a movie tie-in game license and I'm curious to see if they will expand this game with any future updates (ie: more characters to play, such as my favorite SS character Boomerang, more weapons, or environments) as has been mentioned by one of the developers in the Touch Arcade forums.

     In the end, Suicide Squad: Special Ops is a simple and fun experience for fans of either mobile FPS games, or the DC Comics' anti-hero team.  Give it a chance and you should get a fair amount of entertaining gameplay time out of it.