Reviews

• gamedeal user

  Dec 13, 2014

  Strife was originally released in 1996 on a modified doom engine, it was unique for its time because it combined elements of RPGs with dooms run and gun gameplay. The result was a cult classic that has garnered fan projects and restorations, but sadly it was forgotten amongst the other big PC games like Duke Nukem 3D and Quake. Until this re-release I was convinced many forgot about Strife, thankfully I was wrong as the devs who ported this cared very much about the game. Strife: Veteran Edition is thankfully not just Strife shoved in with dosbox, it is an actual port based mainly off of the Chocolate Strife source port. It contains the original IWADs and the ability to play it as it was in 1996. It also adds a large amount of modern new features and customization options. An optional bloom lighting system and motion blur have been added along with objective/damage indicators and weapon recoil. I'd easily recommend this version of Strife to anyone looking for a good action game, its a very unique experience and this port only enhances it.
• gamedeal user

  Dec 13, 2014

  Strife on steam = instant purchase. This game blew my mind when it came out, and this port/update is incredible. the port is well done, I havent had any issues with mouse lag (one of the other reviews mentioned it) all the extra graphical options are welcome, but to be honest I'm running it without the high quality renderer, because the chunky pixellated style just looks wicked to me. The gameplay is awesome, and modern FPS games could learn a thing or two about level design and mission structure from strife. Only an hour or so in, and I've already found a couple secrets I missed when I was a kid!
• gamedeal user

  Dec 13, 2014

  [strike]One of[/strike] THE Best Doom Engine Game EVER! Strife is incredible. It's EASILY the best game released using Doom Engine. It feels almost like an earlier version of Deus Ex with its post apocalyptic cyberpunk inspired setting that has you running around a city hub taking & completeing jobs for various NPC in the game while finding, earning, & buying upgrades for your character & his arsenal. Its a damn shame it had to drop a month before the likes of Quake. Thanks to this almost no one has ever heard of it, and it was doomed (no pun intended) to launguish in relative obscurity never recieving the recognition it deserved. Believe it or not, this is the game that pioneered interactive AI allies & ingame storytelling in an FPS, things Half-Life was later was credited for. This truly is not only the best Doom Engine Game but also one of the greats forgotten gems of all time.
• gamedeal user

  Dec 14, 2014

  The original version of this game is one of the few first-person shooters I have in its original big box in my classic game collection shelves – and the reason is simple: it's just overwhelmingly good! Why? Well, the game was way ahead of its time, back in 1996. Just think of it as a mission-based, story-driven "Doom"-clone with an open world. This description still doesn't do the game full justice, but it's a good way to at least categorize it. I've re-played the original game during the Christmas holidays in 2010 and thoroughly enjoyed every second of it. The comic-style artwork and the voice acting really reminds me of the style of the classic adventure game "Beneath a Steel Sky", the faction of The Order feels like a high-tech version of the Hammers from the "Thief" trilogy (by the way: "Thief 2014" doesn't exist...) and the open world has a very unique feel to it. It offers a nice opportunity to experiment a bit with choices and outcomes. Getting your secret "underground rebellion missions" via in-ear radio feels really immersive, too! Thankfully, this updated Veteran Edition doesn't change the original too much. Just a very comfortable new Full HD engine with complete mouse look, high quality textures, dynamic lighting and bloom and a rich variety of options to customize the game to your liking. Oh, and Steam achievements, too. This was an instant buy – and I wholeheartedly recommend this game! Go buy it. It's WELL worth the asking price!
• gamedeal user

  Mar 19, 2015

  I loved this game when it came out. It added story, stealth and RPG elements to a genre that, at the time, these elements were new to. That said, after playing through it again, I realize that only the early parts of the game (set around the hub of a town occupied by the Order) really stuck in my memory all that clearly. There is a good reason for this: the further you get into the game, the less significant the elements I mentioned earlier which make the game unique really have any effect. By the end, it's just navigating maze-like levels looking for the right switch, mowing down masses of enemies that cross your path with your impressive aresenal of weapons. In other words, it gradually devolves into every other shooter of its time. Another issue I have is just how little variety there is. All the enemies - save one type - are either acolytes or robots. Most of the settings are either medieval-style castles or technological settings that could have been pulled out of a contemporary Star Wars game. There's a bit where you first leave town and find yourself in the outskirts, where it looks like you'll get a new kind of outdoor setting. I still enjoyed playing this game, and played it all the way until the end. But honestly, if you aren't someone who played it back in the day and wants to rekindle memories or whatever, I don't really see the point in playing this. It might be an interesting curiosity to see an extremely early example of an FPS incorporating these elements from other genres, I suppose, but you might find your interest waning the further in you get.
• gamedeal user

  Dec 6, 2015

  Strife: Quest for Sigil, aka Strife: Trust No One, aka The Original Strife, aka Strife Not MOBA, is a FPS that came out in 1996, developed by Rogue Software. It's known for still using Doom engine, albeit a modified one, and mixing a bit of RPG elements into it, like a next step from Hexen. It was counted as abandonware as Rogue Software went bankcrut and source code was lost too for a long time. But Night Dive Studio, known for bringing games into legal digital age out of void of rights conspiracies, got contacted by developers and hired two Doom community members who were able to reverse-engineer the game, also basing their work from Chocolate Strife project, which allows you to run Strife without DOSBox or any fancyness. Plus artist. And so in 2014 we got Veteran Edition for Steam, which brings it to modern standarts, uses Steam features and got few more additions. Thus I conclude my inglorious Wiki research. Technical-wise, this game should work well, with widescreen-support and many other things. Though I heard some complaints that some fail to run this game. Strange. Multiplayer is said to be quite early and as you can guess there is not multiplayer community actively playing it. Like, gee, what did you expect, especially when there is Skulltag/Zandronum multiplayer source port for all Doom engine games. The plot is quite simple in that you are mercenary who was taken for interrogation by the Order, religious dark monarchy which took over the land. And now you shall rebel and search for the Front, the resistance. And then weird stuff. With plotholes. Setting is awesome, being mix of tech and colorful medivel. And so you will talk with NPCs, with main ones being awesomely voiced, sometimes choosing an answer, but mostly moving along the linear path. Still fun. As for the game itself, well, it's a Doom clone mostly. With a bit of RPG and very light weird stealth. Then again, "Doom clone" usually stands as "good game" in my book. And I have hard time writing anything interesting about action part of a game. It's fine. You got few weapons, inlcuding super-gimmick weapon that zaps your health. There are few types of enemies. You also got interesting weapons, inlcuding mini-bazooka, which isn't as strong as expected but at least it's more accurate than assault rifle in early game, or crossbow with electric bolts which is equal to pistol, or grenade launcher which is powerful as hell, but only if you master it enough not to have it bounce two offset grenades back at you. And it's mostly unrefined, you mostly will be attacked by hitscan or fast projectiles. So it's not awesome as in Id games, mostly on Build engine games level. At least I wasn't frustrasted here. Mostly because the game be default automatically uses two types of medkits from inventory when you are low on health, so the way it works you pretty much have extended lifebar. And healthkits are very common in this game. Then there is a bit of erm stealth, as some may note. There are two weapons in the game that will not alert the current sections. Dagger-punch and poison bolt. Punching people into face may take a while and enemies who see you will wake up. On other hand, poison bolt insta-kill organic things, but doesn't harm robots. And look, it's probably there just to have town sections working, where you aren't supposed to kill anybody. Yep, there is such section, with shopkeepers to buy ammo and health and items from. And so this stealth is weird. You can shoot poison bolt into face of acolyte in front of everybody and no one will care. And most robots will always chase to kill you even if you didn't activate the alarm, while everybody is totally cool with murder robots on the loose. If anything, it feels like you are a sly person who abuses his civilian rights in the world of robot laws. Which would make a pretty interesting game, hm. No, no level can be stealthed. Only to some point to feel pro about knowing the map. Too many mandatory alarm-activated gates. So back to Doom clone gameplay. And it has light RPG elements. Mostly that you can talk with some NPCs and buy stuff. And travel to any level you already beat. And town. And you got two stats you can increase by completing missions, sorta: accuaricy and stamina. Accuaricy is about slowly turning your Assault Rifle from shotgun to all-range weapon that runs out of bullets fast. By the way, no, Targeter item doesn't increase it, it just points out how bad it is. Stamina increases your max health and strenght of a punch. So you could stealth those spiders better. Also, almost no other interesting inventory item, aside from teleporter beacon which sends in weak ally rebels so you could horde bullets from them. Now, let's talk about excellent Veteran edition. It changed many things, however it has a lot of options you can tweak, to enable motion blur or to make it play and look close to original. It even keeps unaltered original wad files in the folder. It actually looks very good on default setting. Usually Doom engine games look very flat in OpenGL when compared to Software, which avoids flatness by employing fog-like light effect. But thanks to having lightmaps and making light sources to give off OpenGL light, it looks damn excellent. Plus mouse control. They also went ahead and removed all the nasty dead ends. In original you could die by choosing dialog option which offends character enough to call infinite spawn of guards, for some reason. Chalice item also was a red herring, which makes it impossible to talk with important NPC who will try to kill you now, probably making your only save slot in original version useless. Dropping item didn't do anything, nope. Now most offending dialog were removed and Chalice just will punish you slightly, but not put you into dead end. I approve. Did I tell you that this version includes the demo campaign as well? Nope, chalise quest wasn't changed there as it's the only quest and you have to figure out what to do. It's fun and different from full version. There is extra content too. You now have three medallions to collect in whole game which gives you the berserker powerup, insta-killing things with melee. It was a scrapped thing in original version that you could get by giving yourself through console, cheating. Related to this new quest line of sorts, there was a blue chalice hidden as well which will give you access to totally new secret level where red medallion is waiting for you! Multiplayer is also supported too. Well, original and Veteran both only have competetive multiplayer of deathmatch. Which probably isn't much good. Like when you try to turn single-player into DM. With levels. And weapon progression. And for some reason developers of Veteran edition decided to make three new levels that play like CTF when you run them. Capture The Chalice, actually. As if they seriously were thinking that more than two people will play this at the same time. And to be honest, even though I beat this game fully now, I still think of it as "that obscurish Doom family game". It was pretty nice during the first part of a game, when you do preparation to attack the nearby castle by doing quests in a town, with more or less nice level design, ending with a climax battle for a castle with stupid ally rebels. But after that, it was more of meh experience, being less interesting. With level design of semi-realistical 90s shooters. When mazes don't have abstract flow of id games, just being mazey for sake of it. Like, sewers. Or catacombs. Or generic overcomplex-looking factories. Or my ever hated "grand palaces that are symmetrical for both sides". Pretty fine 90s Doom clone.
• gamedeal user

  Apr 17, 2017

  Ross is the reason i bought this. https://youtu.be/oPrU7LSqiX0
• gamedeal user

  Nov 23, 2017

  Old school DOOM gameplay with an actual plot, and multiple endings. Highly recommend getting this game. Strife was the the precursor to games like System Shock 1+2, and Deus Ex. The Veteran Edition re-release of Strife fixes bugs, adds missing dialogue, and massively upgrades the graphics to modern day standards. The Inventory system in Strife works well, weapons have multiple modes, secret areas, and a solid soundtrack round out the game.
• gamedeal user

  Nov 24, 2017

  A excellent FPS that was once lost to the echo's of time but has returned thanks in part to it's fans and NightDive Studios. I would say more about the game but Ross Scotts's Game Dungeon review does it better than my words can.
• gamedeal user

  Dec 19, 2018

  On par with Quake 1 https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1593707121 https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1594898991 https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1595278325