Strife PC Game Review!

Rated ????

Mr. Beard's Review
Strife
PC Game


The way I am doing these reviews is either people Suggest a game, or I find a random game to play. I play the game for an hour and give my initial opinion. Sometimes however I do play a game a little longer. It all just depends on my mood when I'm ready to write the next post. Every time I play a game and give it my personal rating. I rate the game on 5 different personal points.
Game Play
Graphics
Music
Story
Replay Value
I'll get to each one separately and explain why I feel it gets a full star or not. Now I can get into great detail with everything about this game, but this is just a quick review of the game. If you would like to know more just let me know in the comments below. Plus I will also be posting links to some other great resources.

This is an old school First Person Shooter that I enjoyed a lot back in the day. I think besides the other games like Hexen and Heretic, this is probably the first one I played on a PC. I did however first get my start with Quake and Unreal Tournament on Dreamcast though. So how about we just jump right into this review then?

Game Play

This is your basic first-person shooter. It does have elements of an RPG style of game as well though. The setup and the way it works is with an FPS style of exploration. As you encounter other characters in the game you can interact with them in a story style fashion with multiple choices to progress your story. You can also get gold for doing different tasks, or just finding it in hidden places. You can use the gold to purchase weapons, ammo, and armor as well. These are very spacious maps with loads of hidden features. Make sure you always search everywhere! In all, I enjoyed this game a lot, and still do. For that, I gave it a full star!

Graphics

These to me are the best style of graphics there can be. It is that old school feel that just gets me feeling like a kid again. I want to say I do believe these are the old school 32-bit graphics? Please do not quote me on that because I am not 100% sure about this. These old school style graphics are a huge staple in what 3D game became. There are a few little spots here and there where the textures do not fully match up, and some hidden areas can be easily noticed by the different texture overlays. For the game of its time and everything involved in the animations, the cartoon cutscenes, and the overall graphics I gave this a full star.

Music

The music is not too engaging. It does feel a bit bland. It has more of a feel of background noise than anything. They did amazing work with voice narrations and sound effects. The music did not even give the game a sense of progression, or even a feel of excitement during battle. Overall I had to give it half a star. I just was not feeling the music.

Story

The story is about a world hit by a comet and the people are becoming a sick and twisted religious group. Here is what it says on the Wiki.

"The game is set some time after a catastrophic comet impact, which brought a deadly virus onto the planet. The resulting plague caused deaths of millions of people, while other victims were mutated and began hearing the voice of a malevolent deity. They formed an organization called "The Order" and enslaved the rest of the populace. However, a rag-tag resistance movement, called "The Front", is trying to topple The Order's reign. The unnamed protagonist of the game is a wandering mercenary, captured by Order troops near the town of Tarnhill. After killing the guards and escaping, he comes in contact with a man named Rowan, who makes him an offer to join the Front. The protagonist receives a communication device through which he can remain in contact with a female member of the Front, codenamed Blackbird. From then on, Blackbird provides assistance and commentary throughout the game. The protagonist heads to the Front's base, where the rebel leader, Macil, sends him on a number of missions in order to weaken the Order. After several acts of sabotage, the Front proceeds to assault the Order's castle; the protagonist, accompanying them in the attack, finds and kills a major member of the Order called "The Programmer". He loses consciousness upon touching the weapon that the Programmer had been using.
The mercenary wakes up in the castle, now taken over by the Front. Macil explains that the Programmer's weapon is one of the five fragments of the "Sigil", a powerful weapon worshipped by the Order. He orders the protagonist to find the remaining four. To this end, the mercenary visits a knowledgeable being called "The Oracle", who reveals that the next fragment is being held by another of the Order's leaders, The Bishop. After killing the Bishop and acquiring the second fragment, the protagonist returns to the Oracle only to be told that the third fragment is being held by Macil himself; the Oracle claims that Macil is a traitor who has been using the protagonist as a pawn in his scheme. At this point, the player must make a decision: either disbelieve the Oracle and kill it, or trust the Oracle and kill Macil. The choice has bearing on the rest of the plot.
Assuming the player trusts Macil and kills the Oracle - acquiring the third fragment - he receives another task from Macil: to deactivate a factory, built on the comet's impact site, where the Order is turning captured people into "bio-mechanical soldiers."Upon completing his mission, the protagonist learns that Macil has gone insane; he returns to the base and attempts to speak to Macil, who declares in his madness that he wishes to free the "one god", then attacks the protagonist. Upon killing Macil, the protagonist receives the fourth Sigil fragment. He then returns to the factory, where lies the laboratory of the Loremaster, another of the Order's leaders. After killing Loremaster and thus acquiring the final Sigil piece, he proceeds to use the weapon to unlock a door leading to the comet's impact site. Inside, he finds an extraterrestrial spaceship. Within the ship waits an alien being known as "The Entity"; it is the one responsible for creating the Order and taking over the minds of mutated people. The mercenary kills it with the Sigil; its death means the end of the Order. He then finally meets Blackbird face to face. She tells him that his victory allowed mankind to create a vaccine for the virus, then kisses him. The plot takes a different direction if the player decides to trust the Oracle and immediately kill Macil. Once he does so (claiming Macil's Sigil piece in the process), the Oracle dispatches him to the Loremaster's laboratory. Having killed the Loremaster and obtained the fourth fragment of the Sigil, the protagonist returns to the Oracle, who then reveals that it was using him all along in a bid to acquire the complete Sigil, use it to free the "one god", and attain eternal life. The mercenary kills the Oracle and, with all five fragments of the Sigil now in his possession, heads to the alien ship. There he encounters the Entity; however, the being speaks with Blackbird's voice, and implies that it was manipulating the protagonist throughout the game in order to regain freedom and take over the planet. After killing the Entity, the ending sequence is shown, this time less optimistic: the cure for the virus has not been invented and mankind's future is uncertain." Strife Wiki

Overall I do enjoy the story to this a lot and depending on the different actions you chose it does change the outcome a little. So for this, I gave it a full star.

Replay Value

I do think it does have a bit of replay value, but only because for me it is just fun jumping in and seeing how many guards I can kill before they finally kill me off. There is a different difficulty setting that does give it a bit of a challenge, but there really is no competitive feel for this game. This is more of a fun little time killer to revisit every now and again. For that reason, I gave this only half a star.

I really do have fun playing this game every now and again. I do like running around in this game cause as much havoc as I can. There are also a bunch of fun codes to use for some fun as well. Although I am not too sure if they work on the newer Veterans version. I still have my original disk, so that what I am using. I would love to get my hands on all the original packaging and books. One day I will. I will have a temple for a retro game collective. I do hope you all enjoyed the review and I hope you all have an amazing day!

If you want to play this game yourself then you can it here.
Strife on GOG

Here is a list of the cheat codes for the game itself!
To simply use these codes all you have to do is type them in. I do not have the Veterans Edition so I do not know if they work on there. For those of you with the Veterans Version and you try these please let me know if they work in the comments below.

omnipotent -Sets health to 100% and makes the player immune to damage ("God mode").
elvis -No clipping (the player can walk through walls, characters, and obstacles, climb high ledges instantly, and pass through items and across all tagged linedefs with no effect).
stonecold -Kills everyone on the current level.
lego -Each time entered, gives one piece of the Sigil. If the player has the full sigil assembled, this cheat will also remove it.
boomstix -Gives all weapons and full ammo.
donnytrump -Gives full money and all artifacts.
jimmy -Gives all keys.
pumpup -Gives all accessories.

These are all the ones I am aware of.I am sure there are more out there, but these are the ones I had written down on a piece of paper with the CD. I hope you enjoy!

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