Im sorry, but i never liked Strife at all despite its innovative. I dont think its even a good game... And i a fan of old FPS shooters withIm sorry, but i never liked Strife at all despite its innovative. I dont think its even a good game... And i a fan of old FPS shooters with puzzles like Doom, Quake, Heretic, Hexen, etc... But i never enjoyed Strife... This is my opinion, so instead of give me a dislike, read the review:
For the first time in a ID Tech 1 videogame we see a more storytelling aproach. The story, while its not amazing and the best of the best, is very curious to see these experiments in such an old engine. You have also all of the upgrades that Heretic and Hexen puts in the Doom engine, such as freelook, a open world that its even bigger than Hexen, with a more Quake 2-Half Life style. But also upgrades with more things like NPC conversations, a RPG upgrade system, etc. Strife adds a lot of new things, but the quality its not the best. I explain all of those:
-Graphics: I know its a old game, but even for 1996 it dont look so good and less for today standards. Hexen has a lot better graphics and in 1996 is the release of Quake 1, so the engine even for its time is outdated. What does look great are the portraits of the characters and the mini cinematics that appear when they tell you the story (also the voice acting is great).
-The same complaints that i have with Heretic and Hexen, Strife makes it worse: Doom its a fast, adrenaline first person shooter! Strife while you can run, the gameplay and level design are not adapted to it. Strife requires is more thinking and puzzle, but the caracter movement and the powerful enemies just dont combine well!
-The map is useless. While in Hexen its the same, in Strife where the backtracking is even more common, the fact that in the map the game doesnt tell you the locations or the other hub worlds makes backtracking very annoying. You get lost a lot if you are playing this the first time.
-The RPG system is very poor done if you compare to other RPGs. The problem is that you cannot grinding. Enemies died permanently and killing enemies only gives you ammo, but not gold or EXP. The only way to increase stats or obtaing gold is complete certaing missions that makes more linear the game. Even if you use the respawn cheat for enemies, only ammo its what you can get.
-There´s an alarm in the town and in a lot of places, so this makes more annoying the game. If you kill someone, then guards appears from nothing and kill you very fast with hitscan attacks. Whats the problem? The problem is that even if you dont do this, you can still be chased by guards if you choose incorrectly when you talk with another NPC a multiple choice option. This makes the game more difficult artificially, even in the easiest difficult (and i complete all the Doom games, hexen and heretic in UV, Duke Nukem in come get some, Half Life and Quake in Normal, etc...). Strife abuses a lot with trial and error choices and in the original release, you can only save a single file! So if you save incorrectly you can get stuck forever!
I say again, its my opinion, and i dont think Strife is a bad game objectively, because for its time its very innovative with the masive open world and some changes in gameplay, but innovation doesnt mean quality. With the high frustration and poor decisions i dont have any fun with this game.... And i love Doom! I love Heretic and Hexen! I love Duke Nukem 3d! But Strife its not the case...… Expand
