Strife

The Good
Strife was the first game in memory to effectively combine the first person shooter and role-playing genres. It also included elements that were portentous of the "sneak" genre, as made popular by games like Thief and Metal Gear Solid. What set Strife apart from other games of the time, including the more technically-sophisticated Quake, was that it wasn't all about brazen blasting. There are of course times where the necessary course of action is to kill everything in your path, but there are other times where that mentality spells your imminent demise.

The weapon selection is quirky and unique. We're not talking pistols and shotguns anymore -- we've got unique energy weapons, a poisonous crossbow (which will prove to be your best friend in the first half of the game), and arson grenades.

Subtler elements include NPC interaction, in which you must choose your words wisely, multiple story paths, a helpful companion (albeit via walkie-talkie), the ability and necessity to be stealthy, a reasonably deep plot, and an open-level structure that would later appear in similar form in Half-Life.

The Bad
Strife was developed by small-potatoes studio Velocity, and as such wasn't afforded the budget it deserved. They licensed the archaic Doom engine in the Quake-era, which meant that the graphics even for the time didn't cut it. Even Doom and subsequent spin-offs Heretic and Hexen utilized the engine more stylistically than Strife -- the textures are overly-bright and amateurish, and the level design is at times very blocky. All the NPCs mostly look exactly the same, save color variation. The consequences of even the smallest slip-ups can sometimes have unfairly harsh consequences (the troops swarm in if you accidentally trip an alarm)

The Bottom Line
The primitive graphics are easy to overcome when you consider the sheer fun and depth of the gameplay. This is a precursor to what would become staple to the genre (story, character interaction, objective-based gameplay, stealth, etc.), but Strife did it first, and it did it right. If you can get your hands on a copy of this and a decent source-port, you'll find hours of classic entertainment. A truly underrated classic that never got the spotlight it deserved.

The Good
This game is one of the very best PC games I have ever played. Period.

Note: I played this game on an old PC at a time when I hadn't seen anything more than Doom. Therefore, the graphics & engine of Strife seemed perfectly fine to me. I understand that this might have been a detriment to enjoyment for other people, but I can still play Strife today on a 2.4 GHz PC with Geforce4 and have more fun than playing Deus Ex or a new version of UT.

The game has a plot. It is a rather fun plot, too. It's got nice music, as far as midi goes. It's got nice stage design. It's hub-based. In other words, just about everything about it is wonderful. What I really came to love about Strife is that it has an atmosphere that draws you in - you're not just rushing through the game killing everybody in sight, you feel like you're really in the game yourself, walking around, interacting with people, hiding from enemies. It's pure thrilling pleasure.

As a fantasy and RPG lover, I can hardly imagine a game I could enjoy more.

The Bad
Well, all right, the graphics aren't very nice, but they aren't absolutely despicable either if you can handle something on the level of Doom. The single save slot sucks too - did a lot of copying & pasteing to make sure I didn't walk into a dead end.

The Bottom Line
If you're not absolutely averse to old-style games, if you care more for plot & atmosphere than for technological wonders and mouse-targeting, get Strife.

The Good
This game has a fantastic storyline. Robots, automatic rifles and mutated religious fanatics packed into the medieval times in one. But of course that would be a bit far fetched now wouldn't it? Well before you start the game a narrative depicted in pictures explains how all this became. In short, comet strikes earth, comet releases plague, some survivors mutated into beings known as "The Order" who worship something known as "The Sigil" and those who did not believe in this new religion where brutally beaten, tortured and then "Converted". That's when the rebels and angry peasants come in.....

A special mention also goes to the games graphics, some might see the textures as very blocky and muddy but this is the "Doom" engine pushed to limit. Surprisingly it does a good job of creating an atmosphere, whether it be the grey's and brown's of a medieval town or the dark and light green's of an "Order" temple. The comic-book like art of an important character face as you talk to them is a nice touch and immerses you into this strange world even more.

The levels themselves are great to. They are designed well and look like you would imagine a alien spaceship and underground sewers . My particular favorite is the mission in when "The Front" a resistance group lead by Macil storm "The Order" castle and an large skirmish breaks out between the rebels against robots and cyborgs. The levels are separated using a HUB system meaning instead of linear levels, you can go back and forth from one level to the other which adds to the feeling that this is a real world.

The gameplay is great also and this is what makes Strife a different game from the rest of the doom clones. Instead of shooting everything that moves you have to sometimes actually talk them (amazing I know) to extract information about people, places and objects. Also this is the first game I can remember playing were you have allied soldiers fighting along side you. There is also an RPG element to the game were you have items med packs etc.. to use at anytime. Further more there is also a stat system which determines accuracy and health but apart health the stat system doesn't really affect the game.

Finally the music, even though it's MIDI it can still set the atmosphere for most levels from a rebel underground base to a creepy network of catacombs.

The Bad
There is not much I didn't like about the game apart from maybe one or two levels which are boring endless mazes where you have to solve a puzzle to get out of like "The Sewers" yawn

The A.I is well, laughable but because of the games sometimes restrictive controls, this gives the A.I an advantage because you can't mouse look in the game, also when I played "Doom" non stop when it was first released, I never ever perfected the art of strafing and the same goes for here, even though you can strafe, I find it terribly difficult to turn left,right and strafe at the same time (this is personally speaking of course.)

The save file system is an extremely bad idea as well. I must of had start the game again at least three times because I took at wrong turn got surrounded and had no chance of escaping. This problem can be fixed with a patch though.

The Bottom Line
This game is a CLASSIC. It was one of the first games to combine 1st person shooter and RPG elements into one gaming experience. Think of it as Half-Life's older brother.