Developer: Rogue Entertainment
Publisher: Night Dive Studios
Platforms: PC
Strife: Veteran Edition – Review
More and more games of the pixel art era, the 80s and 90s, are popping up in remastered versions. The veteran edition of Strife is just like that, however the game has not been tinkered with much. This newest revamp of a classic is said to be a love letter but it feels more like a homage to an era of great games. By adding an option to smoothen the fine pixel art the game has going, it allows players of young age to discover the game in its entirety without losing its core features: a great storyline with intriguing quests and a ton of action. No one can deny it, almost twenty-odd years later, Strife is still a blast to play.
Story
Much of the game has stayed untouched and thus the storyline remains the same. A large comet struck the planet and brought doom to humankind. The comet, just like many other modern stories, contained a virus. The majority of the population was killed by that virus while quite a few became mutations, hearing the voice of a malignant god. Those who heard the Entity speak formed the Order, who in return started killing humans who dared to disobey. Of course, no story is complete without a resistance and thus an underground resistance is born to eliminate the Order and its highest ranking officers. This is where the story begins for the player as you will join this resistance and fight for their causes.
Graphics
Those who played Strife in the early days will notice that the visuals stayed true to the original game: pixelated graphics. All-in-all, this is a great way to show modern players that the visuals are not always the best part of games.
You should be able to ‘modernize’ the graphics but you will end up spending precious time trying to tinker the graphics so it suits modern gamers more. There are far too many options and none of them feel like they are truly modernizing the game like it did so in the trailer. Turning off the linear filtering of the game will trade the pixel art for a much smoother appearance but it is clear that it simply blurs the image instead of smoothing it out.
Sound
The sound design simply screams nostalgia. Personally, I’m not entirely into the ever-looping techno music that will bore you to death after a while but luckily tastes differ. The voice-overs in the game are truly great and do make up quite a bit for the irritating ambiance sound.
Gameplay
The movement system in Strife is a system we’re all used to. Moving around is done with WASD, using or activating an item is simple done with the E-button. Speed up your game by running around with the right Shift-button or jump over obstacles with the spacebar. Additionally, you can switch between weapons – some of which you will unlock while progressing, others require you to buy them – with the scroll of the mouse. Shooting can be done with the left-mouse button but you can also use the keyboard for this. Toggling the map is done with Tab and several functions can be found on the F1 to F11 keys. The game may be old but the movement system has never truly evolved. Controller support is added to the game but only partially.
As for the gameplay, it is rather simple. Since Strife is an FPS/RPG game, you simply walk around and talk to people who in return will give you quests. These quests objectives, or missions objectives if you want to give it a more modern name, will show up on your map. Most mission objectives seem simple but a lot of them require you to walk around and look for technology that will open or close doors. This can be somewhat of a puzzle to complete but most objectives can be completed quite fast once you use some logic and common sense. Completing these objectives will unlock several weapons as well as more of the story. Several of these objectives give gold, which is a currency used in the armory and weapons stores. If these missions are not your ‘thing’ you can always walk around the village and ‘discover’ secret entries and rooms but in all honesty, you won’t get far without completing the objectives.
Besides the solo ‘campaigns’, Strife also has a multiplayer mode with two game types: deathmatch and altdeath. The latter mode adds item respawning. You can join a lobby but you can also create one yourself. The game settings you control are quite a lot considering you are playing a much older game. You can even choose which area you’d like to spawn in which is quite a big deal. Unfortunately, the multiplayer mode is a mode that is not often played so you will need to ask friends to join you.
Conclusion
Strife does not have an steep learning curve but players used to modern games may need a few to get used to the whole setup the game has going. Once used to it, anyone who enjoys a decent story will enjoy the game no matter the quite nostalgic, pixel art. The veteran edition is a perfect way to show young gamers that old-school games are still rather sweet and it allows us older players to smile upon the nostalgic features.
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