STRAFE: Gold Edition

A lot of people complain that this isn't a pure 90's shooter. AFAICT Pixel Titans didn't say this was Quake, only that it's inspired by Quake. Strafe is more of a rougelike with FPS gameplay. You'll spend the first hour of playing this game hating it. It's not Quake. It's not Doom. The levels are never the same. Boo hoo hoo... So you'll look up a few things online. You'll dig for FAQs. You'll find a few message boards and some half completed guides. You'll do a little reading. Then things start making sense. You'll find out there are at least a dozen weapons, all of them unique and quite powerful. You figure out how to find those elusive secret rooms. You'll get further and further in the game and it'll get fun. By the time you can gun down the enemies on the Icarus you'll make it to the next zone and you'll have a whole new batch of enemies to fight, and you'll start thinking this isn't such a bad game after all... Now you'll be searching everywhere to find those rare items that unlock more feature of the game. You'll figure out why your score matters and what it gives you after each death. You'll be having fun 30 minutes at a time, trying new styles of play and with different goals in mind. That killer soundtrack will get in your head. It's not a perfect game. I've had issues with some graphical glitching that allows me to see through stairways into the next area but nothing game breaking. Strafe takes some getting used to and if you give it a chance and stop expecting it to be Quake, you'll have a good time.

Strafe is a game that suffers from a somewhat misguided advertising campaign, at least in today's sense. I totally understand the reasoning behind the 90's campaign they had but there are some people that will take offense as it is an evolution, not a retread, of 90's FPS. To understand Strafe, you have to go in with an open mind. It is not a simple cut and paste of Quake. I would relate it more to a Quake/Robotron/Rogue-like hybrid. You always have to be on the move to survive. Strafe-jumping is a necessary skill. The learning curve is harsh, but once mastered, leads to an experience like none-other. The level-design is top-notch (especially for a rogue-like). The DEVs are dedicated and continually improve the game (I still loved it at release). So whether you enjoy Strafe or not depends on how open you are to becoming a better gamer. If you don't mind a learning curve and a little self-improvement -> Strafe will be your jam. If you aren't into that sort of thing with your games (and there is definitely no shame in that), Strafe may not be your 90's cup of tea. Personally, Strafe is my favorite release of the year.

First off, It's a descent game. Not great, but descent. I think the real issue is the hyping up of 1996 action packed gameplay. It's not like the shooters you remembered playing back then. It's definitely more like the rogue lite shooters that are coming out these days. I'm fine with that, but if you're expecting something along the lines of Doom, Quake, or even Blood it's not this game. The procedural generated levels are nice, however the rooms are fairly small and don't leave much room to run around gunning down enemies. At the beginning of each run, you pick one of 3 weapons that you will mainly use. There are others to grab as you play, but ammo for them is limited. Oh and there's reloading. That combined with the small rooms really slow this game down since most of your encounters will be getting the attention of some enemies, backpedaling while shooting at them, and then ducking around a corner or dodging fire while reloading. Overall it seems that a lot of cherry picking was done for the trailers on the actual gameplay. The combat shown in them is there in the game, but it's pretty slow going through areas. Again, I'd call it a very competent rogue lite shooter along the lines of Immortal Redneck or Ziggurat (but a little more cramped). It's definitely not what they were trying to advertise it as.

Want a GREAT shooter that puts this mess to shame? - Play the original UNREAL reskinned GoTY edition and you will not look twice at this. Terrible. -3 stars

After a few playthroughs I feel like I should clarify some of the criticism. 1. You only have one main weapon. It´s true, you choose one of three main weapons that you keep through the whole run. BUT you can change the firing mode of that weapon in almost every level. Depending on the random distribution of special stations. At these stations you can turn your weapon into something totally different, e.g. turning the machine gun into a nail gun with exploding nails. And by the way, in over fifteen runs I did not run out of ammo a single time. I did not even fall under 30 ammo clips. So there is plenty of ammo even for the worst FPS players. 2. You lose ammo when reloading. True, but it does not matter. See point above 3. All other weapons have only one ammo clip and get useless afterwards. Yes, but you will find a lot of them. And all are useful for certain tactics. You have to play strategically. After a few runs, I know exactly in which corners to use the shotgun or the pistol. And most of the time I carry more than one of them. 4. You always have to start from the beginning and play the first levels over and over. No, you don´t have to. Find out how to activate the teleporters. 5. The weapons have artificial bullet spread. The shotgun has a wide bullet spread and is used best in close quarters. The machine gun is accurate at mid-range. The rail gun is accurate at long-range but is slow. All of this is adjustable with weapon mods that you have to find in the levels. That´s not different than usual. Where is the problem? 6. It does not play like back then 1996. It is not like Quake or Doom. No it is not. It is a game of its own. The first world is reminiscent of Quake 2. The following worlds are different. But it plays like an old school shooter imo, with one difference. You don´t need to play it as fast paced, circle-strafing, bunny-hopping shooter. I like a sniper like approach and that is totally possible. Usually you see the enemies before they notice you, so you can sniper them with the rail gun from a distance. It´s a lot of fun.