Let's begin.
I've got a whizzo idea: let's leave the title screen on and see if there's an illustrated, narrated intro sequence to explain what's happening.
"...born of lifelong STRIFE!"
That explained a lot, but not what I was hoping for. Readme time, I suppose.
Q: Why do I start the game fighting Acolytes?
A: Read the "Mercenary" story in the manual opener, it's funny.
Not gonna happen. Time to take a more proactive approach.
Wait, what's with my arm-o-tron? I didn't get the impression from the intro pictures that this was a sci-fi setting. Could I be some kind of kick-ass, time travelling mercenary? As well as in real life?
Let's try talking to him! Now, which button lets me do that?
Well, it's not Return. That uses a health kit. Time to check the menu... and there's three pages of non-configurable controls waiting for me. That's something for me to check later.
"In a small world, word travels fast. I hear you just removed some obstacles from your path. Nice work. Are you interested in some more lucrative projects?"
You hear? As in, you heard that I just murdered two men in broad daylight right outside this very room? Or did I literally move some obstacles before the game began? Who are you, anyway?
Space activates objects, like in Doom, but Return selects dialogue choices. That's annoying. I can choose to accept his offer, reject it, or simply ignore him. I'm-a go for it. I'm sure it couldn't possibly be anything dangerous.
"Good. Some uh, friends of mine need someone silenced. Beldin is being held by the Order in their Sanctuary. There's a rarely used entrance by a small pier off the river which is unguarded. Get in, shut him up, and bring his ring back to me as proof."
Break into a sacred place held by the sworn enemies of the last vestiges of free humanity and kill somebody? Okay, but only because it's you. And because you're giving me an electric crossbow. And paying me in gold.
"Bye!"
And I used ANOTHER medical kit! Damn it!
I save the game... but I only have one save slot for my 'MECHANEKO' character. The tension! Or, alternatively, if I kill or anger a plot-critical character and accidentally save, I have to play the entire game again from the start. THE TENSION!
When you try to talk to these guys, they say "I'm going to kill you!" and your only response is "Thanks, bye!". Even in the face of certain death, the player character refuses to ignore basic manners! What a hero!
He wouldn't listen. Now he's dead. Back to the serious bloke.
"See you later!"
Was that my good manners again, or a sinister threat?
Okay, I found serious bloke. He was exactly where I left him, in a hard to find grey room along the grey wall up the grey staircase next to the grey walls.
At least I'm 100% human. That's reassuring.
He claims to be a talent broker for the rebels. He says I could make a lot of gold if I let him hook me up with the right people. What to do?
1) I'm interested.
2) Screw the rebels!
3) Thanks, bye!
Well, serious guy and Blackbird are working with the rebels rebelling against The Order. Could this guy's rebels be rebelling against Blackbird's rebels? Would that make them Order-aligned, or a mysterious third party? How many different sets of rebels could there be?
There's only one thing for it. Screw the rebels!
Two guards teleport in and shoot me, so I stab like crazy until they're dead. I turn around and expect to find the shady guy shooting me in the back, but it turns out he was killed by his own guards. SNICKER. I get all his stuff from a secret room.
Next, I have to fight my way out of the tavern.
This turns out to be easier than expected as nobody outside this room seems to care that I just killed a man and his personal guard. I guess he really was nobody. I calmly walk out the tavern and have another go at finding the rebel base.
This guy is the watchman for the rebel base. I have to give him the password to get in. The password is 'I need gold.' Is that a good password or a bad password? It's inconspicuous, sure, but I hope that their rebel base isn't full of folks who were hiding in the town hall for shelter and begged this guy for gold.
The rebels are in need of a 'problem solver' to give them the edge they need against... blah... blah...
You know what? No. To hell with it. I'm bored out my mind here!
"You might want to reconsider considering you're surrounded by heavily armed angry rebels."
No.
"Then die in shame and dishonour!"
Turns out Macil is invincible. Boooo.
I'd really like to stop playing now, but I can hear you through the magic of the Internet yelling at me to KEEP PLAYING because it GETS GOOD when you start doing missions for Macil. Fine.
Macil wants me to find a corrupt governor, do a mission for him to get the keycard to the prison, then bust into the prison and rescue some guys.
"Fight for the Front! And Freedom! MOVE OUT!"
AND I used another damned medical kit! AAARGH!
Could you lend me a hand then?
You crack me up, player guy.
After getting lost in the prison for half an hour trying to find the room which lets me release the prisoners, I finally find it, release the prisoners, set up a very convenient teleport directly back into Macil's control room. Sounds a bit dangerous to me, setting up a teleporter directly into the secret rebel base. Especially since we're using the enemy's teleporter to do it so they can easily track us. Maybe that's the plan?
Anyway, I finally got to shoot something, so I'm done. It's safer if I don't continue. If I hang around Macil again, I'll only end up accidentally killing him.
And that's Strife! There's probably mods that increase the resolution to insane levels, replace the sprites with 3D models, or whatever, but none of them will change the fact that this game is terribly boring. Even with Doom's automap and rocket-powered rollerskates, I spent way more time being lost than I did either talking to people or shooting them. Maybe it's more fun if you've played the game through a couple of times and know where everything is, but before you can do that, you'll have to endure 'the first time', and 'the first time' is exhausting and boring.
I beg to differ with your review. This game is anything but boring, and for what it's worth, it's way more imaginative than DOOM ever was with it's own engine. DOOM came out with countless spin-offs and sequels, and they were all mindless violence that didn't even attempt to tell a story.
ReplyDeleteStrife had a couple plot holes and mess ups but considering the technology and time it came out, it was a work of art. Not to mention the voice acting, considering the genre, was second to none. Even by today's shooter standards most if not all voice acting is garbage. No characters are ever memorable or have fun personalities. I remember everyone from Strife from Rowan, Mcgruffin to the comical guards you talk to throughout the game.
At any rate, I'm not bashing you here. I thought this page was a fun read, great job setting it up. I just think a little more credit needs to be given to a classic that was cut down before it could truly shine because Quake came out like a week later. Which is another game, in my opinion that wasn't spectacular in any way shape or form other than looking good for it's day. Unimaginative, pointlessly gory, and little to no story (until the sequels came out - got some good memories with Quake 2).
Anywho, once again, fun read. Keep up the good work.
It says a lot about a video game's voice acting when almost a decade and a half later I can come to a website like this, read the quest dialogue from the images posted, and still remember the exact phrasing and tone the characters spoke in.
ReplyDeleteAnd for the record, you've barely scratched the surface of this game :) Give it another shot with a proper graphical emulator, it might give you some inspiration to continue further.
No, just no. I completely agree with the review. I remember this game too, but what I remember is how AWFUL it is. I can see how you can think this game has memorable characters with unique personalities, but frankly, I think DOOM's original plot of hell on earth (err, mars) was actually better. Because it didnt get in the way of actually playing the game! But none of that matters, hell maybe you are actually right eventually, but it didnt make any difference to me, because the concept of making an RPG with dialog choices and supposed "depth" in a doom-engine game is REDICULOUS. Maybe nowadays in doom-legacy or something with high-res this is playable, but back then? It was a 340x200 MESS! I couldnt see a damn thing, and what I could make out was completely impossible to navigate. Not the amount of linedefs and polygons that this game pushes made it run like absolute crap on the computer I had at the time. I wasted hours trying to like this back in the day, and I can see some of what you like in it, it would have been ok as a top-down 2D RPG or something but DOOM-engine?? What were they thinking??
ReplyDeleteI can only see liking this if you have absolutely nothing else to do, and can afford the time to make a hand version of the auto-map, checking everything out exhaustively and writing down the name to everything by hand. And even doing that I cant imagine how you would actually be able to get the plot-sequencing right, because every time I found someone who wasnt anonymous and was willing to talk about something real they just told me to fuck off untill I did something ELSE that made no sense.
Maybe, hidden deeep inside, there is a decent game here, but I couldnt find it at the time, and I cringe at the thought of trying it again today.
WRONG.
ReplyDeleteThis was one of the best games of the year, and most people ignored it because it didn't have ZOMG THREEDEE like Quake did.
The voice acting is great, the plot is better than many published novels, and the level design is great, especially in the later half when it was mostly Tim Willits making the maps.
This game isn't Doom or Hexen so don't go into it expecting a fast-paced kill-everything FPS. Think of it more like Arena The Elder Scrolls but with better weapons, and a game world where you don't have to walk 500km at the speed of a wounded turtle to get to the next interesting thing.
Loved Strife, is a great game.
ReplyDelete-Rob K.
I decided to have another go of Strife while my Halloween Harry computer is up and running. I didn't have a great time. I'd totally forgotten how the main plot events go, so things went a little differently this time.
ReplyDeleteI decided to immerse myself completely in Strife's nonlinearity and accept all the missions I could. I found the Sanctuary accidentally much later, so I'd triggered both Rowan's ring mission (why do you have to kill the guy??) and the sleazy tavern guy's chalice mission. Little Did I Know that if you attempt the chalice mission, you're trapped in a dead-end scenario because a plot-critical character you haven't met yet, two goals removed from your current situation, will turn on you for having touched the chalice and call in guards to instantly kill you. There's no way around it, it's how the game's plot is written. Touch the chalice, can't win the game. Great. I'm glad that they're making the world unpredictable and so on, and I love a good Bad Ending, but I also like fighting my way out of things. Hell, you might feel like taking the chalice anyway because it's a great big piece of golden treasure owned by the enemy and you're desperate for money.
I read that they changed this for the Strife Super Special Edition, which is good, because being able to trap yourself in an unwinnable situation when you only have one save slot per player (and no confirmation when you save over it) really puts me off.