STRAFE: Gold Edition

Back in 2016, both Strafe and DUSK were fighting for the title of NuBoomShoot revival. Strafe came out first and it didn't do too hot, so the title was handed to DUSK. However I think, 5 year after Strafes final update, that this game definitely didnt deserve the flak it got. It's a fine little roguelike with a killer soundtrack that had the wrong expectations handed to it.

Hidden gem

I've tried to load it so much that I managed to rack up "play time" with just "startups." Though that's a bit of a lie, the game doesn't start up at all. I just lack a better word or term. I tried uninstalling and reinstalling. Ts so ass. Looks cool, but quite literally unplayable. Not a game. Hell, I could get petty and call it false advertising. Refunded this BS.

I hate this game deep down to my old man bones.

It feels like Quake 2, but as a roguelike [quote]Follow us for more stupidly fun [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/45205361-Boom-Boom-Bros/] Massacres![/url] [/quote]

Very boring, avoid it. Lots of other games in the market that actually deliver what this game promises. It's very slow, shooting is not fun at all. Bullets from supposedly hitscan guns like the shotgun miss the head at pointblank. There is little variety to the gunplay. And most enemies just run at you. Nothing remotely tactical or "blazing fast action" or even chaotic about it. Even the "UI" sucks. Buy something else.

the bad: you do not need to engage with combat at all until you reach the final boss, my last two runs (out of 5 runs in total) i decided to just strafe(holy science its the game name) bhop to gain mach 7 speed and finish sections under two minutes the only time i needed to engage in combat is when a door required me to kill nearby enemies, which means i could either pick up a barrel and blow up almost every enemy that was chasing me since start of the level or i could spam alt fire of any starter weapon which has AoE damage the map the game has is basically useless and your best way to navigate is to go to paths where you do not see blood and gore some enemies bleed orange blood which will always damage you unless you manage to buy a specific upgrade from merchant, which is not guaranteed to spawn, the orange blood always results in very cheap damage as sometimes it just blocks your path very limited enemy variety if you even engage in combat and they lack sound cues so you dont even know what enemy is near you this game does not gain any benefit from being a roguelike, you always have the choice of three starter weapons or if you dont pick any you can use a wrench or your fists if you dont take the wrench, there is only pseudo procedural generation as each level has like three rooms that are shuffled in random order, the only thing being roguelike does is make preserving health and armor a full time job unless, as i said before, you just dont engage in combat speaking of health and armor, if you actually want to do combat, you need to slowly clear out enemies and when you get low on armor or ammo backtrack to the machine that lets you craft ammo and armor, the cost of which increases with each level so at endgame it costs like ten thousand scrap to just get 50hp worth of armor the best weapon is the shotgun, second being the railgun(only the primary fire as it deals heavy damage) and the smg is just garbage, the only upside the smg has is its alt fire which is a grenade launcher, but youll go through all your ammo in no time if you use alt fire too much speaking of weapons, i do not feel any feedback from any of the weapons, they feel weak despite me knowing the shotgun just obliterates everything and starter weapons are the only thing that can refill munitions, you can find random weapons on the ground that have a single mag without alt fire and then you can either use them as improvised single use melee or in some cases they act as a bomb, which the game does not explain to you mind you. this game is also tedious to 100%, one of the achievements requires you just need to die one thousand times, not even mentioning secret achievements which you wont be able to find by yourself the final boss is pretty lame and the overall ending kind of sucks, like nothing happens you just go back to your ship, kill some scientist dudes and then you sit back down in the cockpit which is the main menu. the good: great music design unlike other games, armor is treated as a second healthbar the game can run on a brick and takes up less than 3GB of space somewhat okay if you get it on sale for 4 euro or you get it as a gift

An extremely mediocre retro FPS. Gameplay feels a bit odd, weapons feel unrewarding to use. It's a "roguelike" but you don't get anything out of re-playing the game, it just has procedural generation and basic weapon choice. Because of randomly generated levels, sometimes you'll turn in circles trying to find the last key you need to open a door, keys items drop on the floor like any random items, so sometimes you don't even know what you're looking for. Most of the machines and items in the game aren't explained at all, you just have to guess how they work. Levels and enemy variety isn't great, you get bored of killing the same enemies again and again on the first playthrough. Overall very boring game, with lackluster gameplay, legit no reason to buy it when there are so many much better retro FPS around.