Strafe

This is the run.

Developer Pixel Titans launched a kickstarter campaign with the goal of creating a roguelike inspired by the shooters released in what many now fondly refer to as the golden age of PC shooters. It's very blatant in its references to such titans as Doom and Quake but under the low-poly pixelated gorefest lies a very different type of game from what many were expecting, so let's take a dive into how...

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.

A roguelike FPS that channels the rad ‘90s but harshes major on new ideas.

STRAFE gets a lot of presentational things right, and even though it undermines and contradicts its own mechanics in some places, the singular sense of style the game exudes is fantastic. Running through the swarmed halls of the dilapidated space station has a lot of appeal for classic shooter fans.

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 c...

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 tel...

Strafe is a fast-paced, ‘90s throwback shooter that has you running and gunning through procedurally generated levels past hordes of deadly foes. Whether you’re nailing opponents with head shots, sniping off limbs, or turning the entire screen into a slaughter with grenades, everything just becomes a big, bloody mess. These piles of gore are sort of a metaphor for Strafe itself – a giant goopy mou...

Strafe attempts to walk the thin line of being harsh but fair but unfortunately falls off it entirely. Because of the variable randomness to each level, there’s very little you can do to improve on each run. Deaths often are at the hand of level’s own unpredictability, making it next to impossible to improve from run to run. Even worse is that, if Strafe was judged solely on its shooter mechanics ...

Strafe wears its influences on its sleeve as a retro, first-person shooter on permanent ‘screw you’ mode. The game brings unrelenting waves of nostalgia from legendary games like Doom and Quake.

1996 should have stayed in 1996.

STRAFE as of now feel unfinished, and is too reliant on its successful marketing campaign. If you are an absolute diehard for these type of games, I implore you to look up Brutal Doom instead. It is a free mod that gives the original Doom a bit more oomph and visceral feedback, while changing some of the controls to feel both familiar and fresh.