Strafe is a fond throwback to games like Quake and Doom. Seeking to capture all bloody fun of old school shooters, it has one hell of a shotgun and a lot of baddies to blast into bits. Heather and Chris sat down to take on its twisting corridors in this archived livestream.
Created by Pixel Titans, Strafe drops players into a series of procedurally generated levels where they need to jump over, shoot at, blow up, and… well, strafe around enemies to survive. Starting with either a shotgun, assault rifle, or rail gun, players will gather an arsenal to blaze a bloody trail through each level. If there’s one thing this game nails, it’s how damn great it feels to play. Strafe learned all the right lessons from early first person shooters: this game controls like butter. Which is good. Who doesn’t like butter?
Strafe can get a little too chaotic from time to time. With so many enemies, explosions, bullets, and gibs, it can occasionally be difficult to engage in the type of last second dodging and tricky shooting the game really wants to facilitate. When it all working, Strafe is some of the best first person shooting around. But without keenly authored levels and deliberate enemy and weapon placement, it can be hard to balance the experience.
Still, it’s bright and fast and pretty freakin’ sweet and comes highly recommended for anyone eager for an excuse to rocket jump the night away. You can play Strafe on all PC, OSX, and Playstation 4.
Comments
2 responses to “We Filled Retro Monsters Full Of Lead In Strafe”
Looks ok. Field of vision is a bit weird.
But at end of the day, why wouldn’t you just play quake?
I think too much stock is out into nostalgia for nostalgias sake. All these indie companies are just recreating things from the past and not pushing games forward.
I’m a fan of resident evil, but do I want a knock off with tank controls and static backgrounds? Hell no.
I’m not one to base a purchase on Steam reviews, but a lot of them seem to have the same complaint, that having a single health pickup that only restores 10% health means less old school running and gunning and more backtracking into a corridor where enemies that run at you in a straight line can be mowed down with ease.
I like the idea, but might wait until it’s a bit cheaper.