Strafe

Enemies run incessantly, explosions are happening around you, monsters that resist dying and very few resources with which to deal with such threats. You are alone, you and a shotgun … or a rocket launcher, pistol, machine gun or whatever weapon you carry in your hands. The point is that nobody is going to help you; you depend solely and exclusi

vely on your ability to slaughter enemies at breakneck speeds, as in the old days !, although unfortunately, luck also influences a bit. That in the labyrinthine levelsrandomly designed have the good fortune to find valuable objects, or good scrap to exch

ange for ammunition and protective shields, or simply not to fall into areas crowded with enemies in which you can not even move. Sometimes it happens, and it’s frustrating; It takes charm from a videogame that did not need to resort to such an extreme level of difficulty to make nostalgic players happy.

There is not much history to hear in STRAFE. A corporation needs you to fight for scrap, and there you go! To an unknown world, to fight.

There are no big differences, but subtle changes that force you to adopt new combat strategies that, in most cases, depend on the weapons you find on your way. In this sense, at the start of the game, you are given the choice between a shotgun,

an assault rifle and a precision rifle. That will be your main weapon, the one that accumulates the most ammunition, the one that in special zones can even improve; and then you have all the others that are typical of the genre. They a

re a blessing. There are so many enemies to shoot down in a matter of seconds that sometimes traditional media is not enough. Give them lead!

In STRAFE everything looks the same as in 1996. Even the menu of graphic options treasures that style. Nostalgia? The video game knows how to take advantage of it.

The levels of classics like Doom and Quake are a great example of design; They were so good, they hid so many secrets, that in the end, after so much repetition of the action, you knew them all by heart and you still enjoyed them! This does not happ

en in STRAFE. On the one hand it is great, of course, because the surprise factor is never lost, but in return we have levels that do not present

such a splendid finish. That’s not bad! Although generated randomly, each stage is full of small details that denote the love with which Pixel Titans has created a video game that, if born at that time, would have kept the type against the largest.

The big problem, aside from some technical errors that promise to solve soon, is that this is a video game extremely difficult . It’s not always fair, and it can be frustrating when you suddenly appear in the middle of an area crowded with enemies, or you do not have enough scrap to replace shield or ammunition. Everything is too expensive! And life

goes down at scandal speeds. I understand the grace of putting things difficult, of posing a good challenge, but I think that with STRAFE they have passed. So much that I was not always tempted to try my luck one more time, on the contrary; of pure frustration left the game. Then I came back !, because the game has its charm, but I feel that a golden opportunity has been lost to create a work worth remembering.

What excites me is that Pixel Titans works on adding new game modes so that the action does not decay for a second, and all of them promise to keep intact the essence of the classics of the nineties, as if the game had really premiered in 1996 It is seen and heard like the games of that time, with special mention to a soundtrack, with rhythm, that catches you

in the crazy environments to which the game takes you. I have also hallucinated the winks to games like Half Life, Wolfenstein 3D or Superhot, as well as those little details that evoke the eighties and nineties, like the sound of modems, which is used here to move from one stage to another.