STRAFE

Strafe styles itself as both "the future of videogames" and "the most action-packed game of 1996", and there's a ring of truth to both gags. In folding together and drilling into layers of FPS convention, Pixel Titans has created a game that is at once sentimental and sharply contemporary. It doesn't so much take us back to '96 as transport '96 into the present, picking up threads left by Doom and Quake and weaving its own tapestry out of them, every time you play. [July 2017, p.116]

Strafe is hard, gory and full of references for those who enjoyed the classic Doom or Wolfenstein 3D. If you like how it sounds, try it.

STRAFE is a gore fest with very old graphics, fast paced first person shooting and roguelike mechanics. Slightly unbalanced and maybe too rough for some players, it's still a worthy and pleasantly ironic homage to the nineties.

As unforgiving, repetitive, and frustrating as it can be, the urge to jump back into the game and take out that frustration on hordes of enemies to the tune of the most-proper soundtrack with a toy box of guns is hard to resist. Strafe wears its influences on its sleeve but stands on its own as a fun, intense, and fast-paced shooter with distinguishable charm.

STRAFE is an engaging and captivating roguelike with a solid, 90's FPS gameplay (and graphics), tailored for fans of the "old school" genre. The procedural maps are well designed and varied, and the idea of having a single, moddable weapon throughout the game is pretty unique. The recently released Millenium Edition fixes a lot of bugs and adds some new game modes.

Strife hides a merciless challenge behind his well crafted Nineties costume. Not only old-style FPS lovers can find death on Icarus but also who's searching for a demanding moment of pure gore. Perhaps different levels of difficulty could have expanded the audience.

Strafe is a game where you need to know what you’re getting into before jumping in. It looks like Quake but it absolutely is not; it’s a roguelike FPS with a retro art style. It’s a harsh mistress, and masochistic players will love that, but Strafe personally left me frustrated and cold.

Over and over again, you will die. Maybe you’ll get better, faster, more responsive to the various threats that assault you. Maybe you’ll learn all the tricks and strategies needed to steamroll most enemies like target practice at a gun range. This still won’t help you when you round a corner and get ganked by some goddamned sentry the second before you reload. Then you get to watch the blood stream down your screen before you start the whole ordeal over again. Perhaps this masochistic dance will light a flame in your heart. You’ll think to yourself, “Finally! A game with some real challenge!” To you, I say good luck, godspeed and always be reloading. You’ll run out of health long before you run out of ammo.

Strafe skillfully recaptures the look and experience of a full-tilt twitch 1990s shooter while faltering at building upon its potential.

Quotation forthcoming.

Frantic action, excessive gore and challenging progression with a touch of nostalgia that is a laugh while it lasts with little depth. [Issue#263, p.54]

Quotation forthcoming.

Quotation forthcoming.

The 90's shooter is back. Strafe offers interesting roguelike elements, while nostalgically referring back to the legendary Quake and Doom. Don't be fooled by the simplistic level design: Strafe is anything but easy.

Strafe is like an old-school FPS game. Seasoned players will like it but newcomers will find it too frustrating.

Strafe falls short of greatness, but is definitely great fun. Each of the three main guns feels good to wield, and if some of the mods aren’t as useful as others, there are still ways to use them effectively. The secondary limited-use guns provide a welcome opportunity to change tactics when necessary and grabbing an exploding bug off the wall to use as a makeshift grenade somehow never gets old. The bloody violence is particularly well done, because not only is it fun to get your carnage on, but the bloody trail you leave in your wake is surprisingly helpful in keeping your bearings. Plus you can always shoot an enemy on a toxic orange spill and use their blood to make the floor safe again, which is awfully helpful in a gory kind of way. There are plenty of secrets, occasional hidden levels and many other goodies and bits of weirdness to find amidst the carnage and mayhem, making Strafe a fun and highly replayable action roguelike FPS that wears its love for the 90s on its blood-soaked sleeve.

Strafe is a good FPS but it's more of an old game than an old-school game. Seasoned FPS players will like it but newcomers and young people will surely find it too difficult, and too frustrating.

If you’re looking for a challenging, retro-style FPS that takes no prisoners, STRAFE has you covered. It has the replayability and difficulty of a perma-death roguelike wrapped in the style and attitude of a classic nineties shooter. Yet where Wolfenstein: The Old Blood and Doom 2016 revived old-school action in a way anyone could enjoy, STRAFE is a hardcore experience, through and through.

As far as frantic FPS's go, this is one of the best, but poor AI and a ramped up difficulty might prove too much for some.

A beautifully recreated love letter to the early days of first-person shooters, it's fun but limited. [July 2017, p.81]

An FPS roguelike wearing the suit of a 1996 shooter, STRAFE is a unique game that seems destined for a small but passionate following.

When it works, Strafe is a generally entertaining retro-styled shooter that mixes procedurally generated levels into an experience strongly reminiscent of Quake. It's a great concept that usually comes together, but between the quirks of randomization, powerful enemies that run almost completely silent, lethal bugs, and hefty costs for vital armor and ammo powerups, a lot of the time it feels as challenging as rolling the dice and coming up with double sixes.

Strafe isn't bad, but there are many better ways to satiate your nostalgia for '90s FPS titles.

Unfortunately, Strafe is no more than an attempt of tribute to the FPS of 1996.

Strafe succeeds at being a suitable homage of referential nostalgia-laden trinkets, but there’s no other real reason you should play it. If you want the feel of an old shooter, you should probably go play one of those instead of Strafe.

Where the game sets itself apart from actual ‘90s-era shooters is with its light sprinkling of procedurally-generated elements.

The sad reality is Strafe exasperates as much as it exhilarates. For every fleet footed show of sharp shooting it conspires to blast itself in the food with devious tactics and a steady slew of quite ‘fuuuuu!’ moments to players brave enough to endure the onslaught. There’s a really solid, often graceful FPS in here, one beefed up with generous side content – the 10 room horde mode-esque Murderzone and online speedruns break up the crushing campaign. Yet ultimately, you can’t quite outflank Strafe’s unfair, overwhelming slaughter.

I really tried with Strafe, spending a good six hours with it and getting only as far as the fourth level before dying. I liked the overall tone, and the gunplay is solid fun, but really this is one of the more punishing Rogue-Lites out there, with a high skill ceiling that sets you right back to the beginning once you die without any meaningful progression unless you somehow find the key to a teleporter. A lot to admire, but for most it’ll seem utterly impenetrable.

How this design could move beyond concept phase is beyond me. A lightning fast retro shooter that you have to play slow. Really? This is a boring hamster wheel of procedural synthesis. But it loses its grip on you faster than it can build motivation with its fast electro rock and inventive weaponry.

It's a shame, really. A first-person roguelike with meaty weapons that calls back to the glory of Nineties shooters sounds like such a tantalising proposition, one that we feel could do so well. Strafe just offers that in a very shallow way. [Issue#189, p.80]

A tribute to the doom-esque games failed. The game is knocked down by the basic elements of gameplay, such as procedurally generated environment, boring weapons and stereotyped enemies.

While there are hints of fun to be had if you search hard enough, I don’t think Strafe ever makes the small moments in between worth scavenging.

Strafe looks like Quake when it comes to design and it refers to the classic first-person shooters from the 90's. However, as a roguelike and shooter Strafe is mainly a weak and unimpressive game.

It nails the style it is pursuing and looks like a lost piece of 90s, but the level design and some important bugs in its launch makes it a very frustrating experience the more you play.

STRAFE wants to be a shooter from the 1990s, but has worse mechanics than any of the games it hoped to imitate.

The only reason people paid attention to this mediocre game was its top-notch marketing which convinced us that Strafe is a worthy heir to the best shooters of the 90s. The truth is that its developers simply misunderstand their inspirations. [07/2017, p.52]

Strafe is not even close to the real first-person shooters of the 90s. If it were released in 1996, it would've died a quick death at the hands of its more polished rivals.