Strife

Playtime: 10.2 Hours

Finished 02 July 2025.

Played the Veteran Edition on Elite difficulty (analogous to UV), with pretty much all the extra difficulty options turned off since they didn't seem very fun; I don't really like respawning enemies. I got all 10 upgrades for stamina & accuracy, completed the Talisman quest for permanent berserk, and played through the good route, accomplished by trusting Macil over the Oracle at the first branch (even though it ultimately doesn't matter). I also completed the Demo before the Retail version, which was a bit odd, and so because of it I cold-shouldered Norris the second time around.

This was certainly a unique game among the major DOOM Engine games, essentially taking one step beyond Hexen in creating a more interactible, realistic world with a cohesive story. It uses some custom UI elements to represent dialogue, and allows you to take a number of branching paths throughout the story, instead of running from beginning to end hunting for keys as in the other games. That said, it still feels basic when compared to a number of other classics; namely Deus Ex, which is one of the games that truly pioneered the ImmSim genre. There aren't that many unique or meaningful interactions in the game - consisting of only a few major questgiver characters, shops, and a couple of other generic encounters that are inconsequential. In fact, throughout the entire game, most of the peasants, acolytes, templars, etc. all use the EXACT same dialogue no matter where you are, to the point where you get a random civilian in a Front base talking about the same conspiracy theories you get from the first bar in the earlygame town!

Most of the actual gameplay with respect to the level and enemy designs is fairly standard, though I do notice that some real care was put into making everything feel reasonable. A cathedral actually looks like one, the castles look properly fortified, dungeons and sewers are themed properly, etc. NPCs, soldiers, etc. don't feel like they're placed in random places either - lots of acolytes actually look like they're guarding areas, not just hiding in a supply closet because level design said so. A choice I found weird was to make all bots ALWAYS aggressive towards you, making it impossible to stealth certain sections - I don't see why this needed to be the case, and kind of ruined the immersion a bit; even the cameras don't recognize you when you're undercover, why are the bots so eager to open fire? Hitscan enemies (especially the templars) are annoying as hell, with their faster-than-light reactions and ability to shoot faster than you can. The overall difficulty isn't very high in any case, but it does take a bit away from the enjoyment aspect.

Weapons in this game are pretty interesting, though not too far away from the norm. The dagger fist is pretty shitty at first, but there is a new sidequest added in the Veteran Edition to find 3 hidden parts of an ancient talisman, which gives you permanent berserk for the remainder of the game. With that and all of the stamina upgrades (which buff both HP & melee), I think you kill any non-boss enemy in one hit. At least, those giant engame mech things blew up in one dagger poke. Alternate ammo types (ex. poison bolts for the XBow), interesting weapons (ex. mini-rockets and mauler) and plenty of ammo availability make the game feel fast and fun. Also, the Sigil turns out to be a very potent superweapon, using your own HP to unmake enemies in your way. As you gather piece by piece, each of the 5 forms functions COMPLETELY differently from the others (but they're all cool). And the fact that the boss fights really require you to flex the Sigil means that it's not an inventory piece you just ignore, either - you actually get to use it on stuff. The only exception is the Programmer, since he's the one who drops the first piece after his death. After that, it's Sigil-vs-Sigil time! The only downside to the combat is that vertical aim is still broken in this source port (it was Nightdive's first, and I guess didn't add proper 3D mouselook) so vertical AA was necessary. Oh well.

I feel like this game kind of started out a bit slow. The fact that pretty much all the missions result in you slaughtering everything on all the maps anyway makes the game feel kind of incomplete, its potential not fully realized. Trying to full stealth things, or talk your way out of missions just doesn't work in this game; at the end of the day, it only delays the inevitable in almost all cases. Once I got over my disappointment and let go of my hopes of 2.5D Deus Ex, thinking about this game as a tech demo made it a lot more interesting, and quite a bit more fun - especially after getting the Sigil and some of the other fun weapons. At the end of the day, with rectified expectations, I think this game is a ton of fun! To me, it hits a bit closer to home than most of the other DOOM Engine games, but is just held back by a little bit of the jank. Not entirely sure if I'd play this again as the actual branching paths are super limited, but it was a very cool experience!

BTW, what was the point of Blackbird's character? I've got no idea why she suddenly appears at the end.