STRAFE: Gold Edition

I'm giving this a begrudging 2/5 for now. First, I want to mention the 1 thing I love about STRAFE: the movement. Oh my, the movement is just amazing. The strafe jumps are so easy to learn and they feel so good to execute. Think QuakeWorld but even more forgiving. Speed is easy to build up, momentum is extremely easy to maintain, and air control is snappy. Whether you're surrounded by enemies or in an empty room, it's fun to hop around in STRAFE. And this is why I regret to say there are currently 2 huge (but easily patchable) problems with STRAFE that make it extremely difficult to enjoy: 1.) The optimization. This game has intentionally lo-fi graphics (which I'm all for) yet it's extremely choppy on a 980ti/4790k. There are constant microstutters, and the framerate is frustratingly inconsistent. If you're going to go down the lo-fi route, then please, at least have the decency to ship the game well optimized. There is no excuse for a game of such low detail to run so badly. 2.) Mouse sensitivity. The game forces uneven X/Y sensitivity. Why it does this is completely beyond me. The Y sensitivity is at least 2-3x as sensitive as the X sensitivity. Maybe some people are used to this, but I (and I'm sure most others) expect a game to either have a.) identical X/Y sensitivity (99% of games), or b.) separate sliders for X and Y sensitivity (best case scenario). This isn't a big deal. Optimizing this game and adding separate sensitivity sliders should be extremely easy, and I'm sure they'll be taken care of. But for now, I don't recommend buying this game, not until the aforementioned problems are fixed.

The developers have not updated the GOG version even though the Steam patch has been out for months, and they refuse to answer their customers' questions regarding why this is. The game itself is 4/5, but I will NOT give it a good rating until the developers come out from hiding in their pillow fort and start answering some questions. Do NOT give them or GOG your hard-earned money until this game is updated or even just get some simple honesty.

I finally decided to buy STRAFE and give it a whirl. Needless to say I was not impressed. It's a shame because it has potential. As soon as you start the game you will have to choose between three weapons which are crap. That's all you get. No melee attack. The first level you will be attacked by Sloths or Toasters or a blue guy shooting ice at you. This game is "different" which sometimes is good! But in this case executed poorly. During game play you will find weapons that have no ammo and once your out,your out. Theres a machine that you can make ammo,shields which takes scrap metal that enemies drop. You would think it would be ammo for all the random weapons you find but nope! It's only for the gun you initially chose. There is no instructions on what does what. Such as coming across a "safe zone" that allows you to buy an upgrade. But keep in mind if you die....Then all your upgrades are gone. Every time you die a screen will pop up showing stats I guess it's like an RPG all the sudden and you get XP. You can win....A COIN! The game doesn't tell you how to use them either. So good luck. It really doesn't tell you how to do anything! The HUD sucks! Your helmet blocks the view on the left and right. Thankfully you can change that but then looks stupid with jagged shapes on your screen. You have to press down the key for the map and hold it down while moving. Kind of hard to do since you have to look at the bottom left of the screen.There is no explanation for items in your inventory or power ups you get. I never have to look at tutorials in games but I had to and it's useless it only shows you how to jump and collect scrap. The whole "Strafe" movement is horrible and hit detection isn't there. The blood and gore is okay but nothing new. The music at first is good. But then you will find it just annoying listening to the same tracks that sound identical over and over again. This could be a good game but it needs to be cleaned and polished. BIG TIME!

I have two main problems with the game that I feel really hurt the game more than any others. 1. The shooting doesn't really feel good. I decided to start with the shotgun and it was not that enjoyable to use. I could somewhat understand it if that was the only weapon that felt limp, but almost every weapon is like this. 2. Random levels just aren't that fun for this type of game play. The game was trying to take 90s style gun play and put it into randomized levels which just doesn't work. If you want to use random levels you need to develop the game play around that concept. Without strong level design with secrets and good weapon placement, you really do lose a lot of why people enjoy older FPS games.

Nothing is really old school about this game because of slow reloads and the fact there aren't enough health and armor pickups to make playing fast feasible. Despite that, it play pretty well as long as you go into it with the correct expectations Not enough customization available with the settings - mouse sensitivity steps are too large, just let us manually insert a number please the last patch completely removed a full 1/4 of the stages for some reason, and the only other thing I notice that it did is add 1 weak but annoying enemy. Seriously, just why. It was a 3* before.