his is STRAFE, the most advanced game of 1996, a prodigy of technology and violence that calculates progress in gallons of spilled blood, filling the ether with the croaking sound of an old modem.
STRAFE, also known as the best shooter of 1996, is finally available
THE MOST ADVANCED GAME OF 1996
STRAFE undoubtedly aims to be the most advanced and violent game of 1996. The problem is that the current year is 2017 and, with this awareness in mind, we are faced with a modest title that genuinely recalls the atmospheres of the first two
Quake and field very similar weapons, characterized by the importance of timing. In addition to this adds to the classic recipe a lot of blood, localized damage that cause a shedding of limbs and some apt quotation, all stuck in a roguelike structure, with a single life and no chance to save, which fits rather well to the formula of the shooter in first person old style.
The procedurally generated levels, the variable degree of challenge, the modifications to the weapons and the pieces of equipment do not deny the heart from pure vintage FPS, with lots of colored keys that allow access to new areas of a level, and give the title that pinch of modernity that is necessary, both in the mechanics and in the controls, to ensure that today’s public manages to digest it.
Of course, the roguelike formula, with its high rate of randomness due to the drop and layout of the maps, is not the most competitive in circulation, but the level of challenge is high and grows further in a particular horde mode that guarantees lovers of record the possibility to stand out from the crowd.The multiplayer is missing, despite the caricatures accompanied by the sound of an old modem, but the choice not to implement it, at least for now, has undoubtedly a sense given the intentionally chaotic soul and the structure of the game.
Maybe a cooperative component would not have been bad, maybe in a separate way considering the philosophy of roguelike that bases most of the difficulty in granting a single life, but STRAFE is made to forgive the absence of the online with a gameplay that is more deeper than it seems.
The base is that of the old school adrenaline shooter and it is a school that is as simple on paper as it is difficult to master, focused on quick movements and quick retreats, weapons to be used with perfect timing and tons of monsters.
These, it must be said, are controlled by a artificial intelligence that does the minimum necessary to allow enemies to reach us or shoot us, allowing us to easily keep traps, but numbers and types of enemy, which include robust bugs and giant robot spiders, are designed to put us in trouble. In addition we can throw objects and count on the secondary fire of the weapons to deal with levels strewn with pools of acid and populated by traps that shoot a kind of plasma that can chase us and make the ground impassable.
But the blood shed by the enemies can cover both the harmful substances and it is a detail to keep in mind when the passages are tight and it can happen that such threats can not be avoided. Sometimes, however, it is sufficient to resort to the strafe jump, the particular technique typical of Quake that allows you to move faster by jumping, even if in STRAFE it is not easy to master the side views too marked.
Furthermore Spartan graphics make it complex to properly exploit the headshot, peculiarity of the first-person shooter a bit ‘more recent , although the practice helps to fill the little intrinsic precision of an engine that has the advantage of running on a huge number of configurations. It also helps us with various mechanics that make the gameplay even more faceted.
