Strange Brigade
Gameplay 8
Graphics 9
Sound 9

Strange Brigade is an action-packed third-person shooter that is at its best when played in co-op with some friends. It features a nice assortment of characters, each with their own special traits, as well as a large assortment of undead enemies to eradicate. The inclusion of traps makes for a fun addition to the experience and the action also slows down occasionally for some puzzle solving. While Strange Brigade doesn’t excel in any particular area, it’s still a lot of fun and comes highly recommended.

Gameplay: Lots of action, but best enjoyed with friends in co-op.

Graphics: The visuals look great, but some more variety would have been even better.

Sound: The narrator steals the show, but the music and sound effects are good too

Summary 8.7 Outstanding
Gameplay 0
Graphics 0
Sound 0
Summary rating from user's marks. You can set own marks for this article - just click on stars above and press "Accept".
Accept
Summary 0.0 Terrible

Strange Brigade

Developer: Rebellion | Publisher: Rebellion | Release Date: 2018 | Genre: Action / Adventure / Third Person Shooter | Website: Official Website | Purchase: Steam

At first glance, there’s not a lot that a pugilist from Lancashire, a demon hunting Maasai warrior from Kenya, a British soldier of fortune and an Oxford scholar with a passion for the ancient past have in common. However, in Strange Brigade by Rebellion this peculiar foursome make up the secret division of the same name that is funded by the Department of Antiquities. The purpose of the Strange Brigade is to find and eliminate any mystical threats to the interests of the British Empire. As luck would have it the Witch Queen Seteki, who was overthrown and sealed in a nameless tomb by her people 4000 years ago, was recently dug up by an archaeologist. The Queen’s spirit did not wake up in a good mood and it is up to the Strange Brigade to prevent her and her army of the undead from taking over the world.

Rebellion has already shown that they know how to craft a great co-op shooter with the release of Zombie Army Trilogy and Strange Brigade builds upon this formula. The game is set in the 1930s and fully embraces the adventure serials of the time. The game can be played alone, of course, but it was clearly designed for a team, which is where it really shines. Players must make their way through treacherous ruins while killing the undead, solving some puzzles and collecting all the treasure that they can find. The game shares a lot of similarities with the Zombie Army titles but has plenty of new tricks up its sleeve as well.

Strange Brigade is played in the third person, which allows players to see their chosen character in action. However, the differences between the characters are more than just cosmetic too. For example, Archimedes de Quincey, the former scholar, is the only one who can open Ancient Alcove Doors, while Frank Fairburne is not just tougher, but can cause splash damage with his headshots. These four initial characters were later joined by four more DLC characters who are also included in the Deluxe Edition of the game. These included a Texas cowboy, American aviatrix, Japanese naval officer, and Maharani huntress.

Each character in Strange Brigade has access to a primary weapon, handgun as well as grenades and a unique amulet. The amulet is charged by collecting the souls left behind by slain enemies and can then be used to perform a special attack. Some of these special attacks definitely feel more useful than others, but new amulets can be unlocked via skill points that are earned through the discovery of relics. The game features several different period-appropriate weapons for the characters, such as the Audley A40 Examplar, Gehri-Delgane S1, .303 Huntsman, Eastleigh M1 and more.

There are also a few special weapons such as crossbows and blunderbusses that can only from special chests if you have enough gold. These weapons only last until they run out of bullets, though, and cannot be reloaded from ammo caches like other guns. You can, however, upgrade your normal weapons with special gems that are hidden away in treasure chests. Each weapon has a limited number of slots for gems, so you’ll need to pick which combinations of speed, armor-piercing, life-stealing, bullet ricocheting and other abilities you want for it.

The enemies you face range from the usual mummified corpses to skeletons, giant scorpions, minotaurs and other undead miscreants. They are a surprisingly resilient lot, so aiming for the head and throwing your explosives, dynamite, Molotov cocktails or whatever other grenades you have equipped is recommended. However, each level also features a handy assortment of traps that can be used to thin out the hordes somewhat. All of them can be activated with a quick shot and watching enemies get impaled by floor spikes, burnt to a crisp by flame traps or decimated by spinning blades is quite satisfying. Just be careful if you are playing with friends as they are also susceptible to trap damage. The game even tries to lure you over to the dark side by including a Steam achievement for killing a team member with a trap! Don’t worry, though, as you can quickly revive friends by freeing them from the nearby sarcophagus where they end up after death.

In addition to shooting hordes of enemies Strange Brigade also slows down occasionally for a spot of puzzling solving and item collecting. Although the levels are quite linear you will notice a couple of paths branching off towards hidden areas. These require you to solve a quick puzzle before you can plunder the riches that they hide. Generally, the puzzles only require you to pay attention to your surroundings to find whatever combination is required to open a door, but you’ll also run into memory match and pipe-dream style puzzles occasionally. What is more puzzling, though, is how the game shares things between players. Coins are required to buy new weapons or unlock certain things, but gold is not shared between players, which means tempers can flare if you end up with a greedy person on your team. On the other hand, The relics, hidden cat statues and reading material that can be found are shared between players. Then, strangely enough, the hidden canopic jars dotted around the levels are not shared and whoever finds them will have to point them out to other players. The inclusion of all these collectibles does give the game some replay value and with three difficulty settings, they make for a good excuse to play through the campaign again on a harder setting.

The season pass for Strange Brigade adds three campaign levels to the game and these are just as good as the ones in the main campaign. The levels in Strange Brigade are quite beautiful and each one is packed with a ton of detail, especially when using the highest visual settings. The adventure will take you through hidden valleys, dig sites, abandoned tunnels, ancient shrines, remote mountain villages and more before a showdown in a very unique location. While all these level looks great there is a bit of a sameness to them, which is unfortunate. This is especially noticeable when you reach the pirate section of the game. Here the game takes a break from all the Egyptian stuff for some Pirates of The Caribbean inspired action, which looks and feels very different to the rest of the levels. It also shows what would have been possible with a bit more variety.

The game allows players to choose between DirectX12 and Vulcan for the visuals, which is a nice touch and the details for everything from the textures to the shadows and reflections can be adjusted. Players can also enable or disable features like motion blur, ambient occlusion, tessellation, and obscurance fields to get a good balance between visuals and framerate. From a technical standpoint we did not encounter any bugs in the game and everything, including the online co-op, ran without a hitch. Rebellion has done a great job with the audio in Strange Brigade as the music is a good match for the setting and pulp serial feel of the game. Characters also have their own quips, but it is the very British narrator with his penchant for alliteration that steals the show. He has a quip for virtually everything the Strange Brigade does as well as irrational hatred of cats that frequently had us laughing out loud.

The controls in Strange Brigade will be pretty straightforward although to anyone who has ever played a third-person shooter before, but the game does have a few quirks in this regard. Firstly, there’s no way to hip fire in this game, so you have to aim down your sights before you can shoot. Thankfully, there is an on-screen indicator that will alert you to enemies creeping up on you while you are aiming. Secondly, there’s no run button, so you have to hold down one of the movement keys until your character starts running. More alarming is the fact that the “throw grenade” button is tied to the “Shift” key, which most players associate with running. We had to remap this key to prevent us from accidentally lobbing a grenade while trying to sprint away from enemies. Finally, players can perform a dodge roll with a quick tap of the spacebar, which is handy for evading enemies.

Overall, Strange Brigade is a great game, but to get the most out of it you really need to team up with some friends for the co-op action. There’s still fun to be had in single-player, but it can’t really compare to the co-op, provided you play with people who co-operate instead of grabbing all the gold and health potions. Even after completing the campaign there still “Horde” mode and “Score Attack” modes that provide some additional fun. We also recommend getting the Deluxe Edition of the game as the additional DLC maps are definitely worth it. There’s nothing revolutionary about the game, but it does provide plenty of action-packed fun.

System Requirements

  • OS: 64-bit Windows 7, 64-bit Windows 10
  • Processor: AMD Ryzen 3 2200G or Intel CPU Core i3-2100
  • Memory: 4 GB RAM
  • Graphics: AMD Radeon HD 7870 (2GB) or NVIDIA GeForce 750 Ti (2GB)
  • Storage: 35 GB available space
  • OS: 64-bit Windows 7, 64-bit Windows 10
  • Processor: AMD Ryzen 5 1500X or Intel CPU Core i7-3770
  • Memory: 8 GB RAM
  • Graphics: AMD Radeon RX570 or Nvidia GPU GeForce GTX 1070
  • Storage: 35 GB available space

Related posts

The Deer God

The Deer God

The Deer God challenges you to live life as a deer while atoning for the sins you committed as a human hunter. Don’t expect to spend your days peacefully grazing though, the game is a puzzle platformer at heart and you will have to fight hostile creatures while performing quests. The 3D pixel art visuals are a definite highlight and despite the combat the game has quite a relaxing atmosphere. It might fall short of living up to its full potential, but The Deer God is still well worth checking out. Gameplay: Gallop and double jump through different environments while solving puzzles and performing fetch quests. Graphics: The 3D pixel art visuals really make this game stand out from the crowd. Sound: Nice sound effects and a very fitting soundtrack.

West of Loathing

West of Loathing

West of Loathing is a single-player role-playing game that doesn’t take itself too seriously, which results in a wild quest through the West. The world in which the game is set might be made up of stick figures, but this doesn’t mean it isn’t fleshed out. There are many locations to explore, plenty of puzzles to solve, and hordes of enemies to defeat. Even better, it is the type of RPG where stats make a difference, and your choices make a difference. Fans of the genre will love the depth the game has, but everyone else will appreciate the brilliant sense of humor. Gameplay: West of Loathing is packed with plenty to see and do, along with a healthy dose of humor. Graphics: The black and white stick figure style visuals might look simple at first, but they definitely have a lot of charm Sound: Although the game doesn’t feature voice acting, it has a great soundtrack and plenty of sound effects.

Scathe

Scathe

Navigate a deviously crafted maze and blast the legions of hell to bits in this fast-paced first-person shooter. The bullet hell elements make for a different type of shooter, and the inclusion of drop-in/drop-out co-op enhances the experience. Scathe also impresses with some polished visuals, big guns, and menacing enemies to use them on. Unfortunately, the audio could have been better, and the game can become repetitive. Nevertheless, Scathe is a lot of fun, especially when played with friends, and does enough to elevate itself above the horde of cookie-cutter shooters cluttering the market. Gameplay: Scathe features plenty of action along with some extra challenges to keep players on their toes. Graphics: The visuals are stylish and feature a lot of impressive designs. Sound: The choice of music is great but needs more variety, and the sound effects lack punch.

Abyss: The Wraiths of Eden

Abyss: The Wraiths of Eden

Abyss: Wraiths of Eden is yet another very enjoyable hidden object game from one of the best developers in the genre. The setting might not be that original, but looks great and makes for an interesting story. Since it is a relatively easy title, it is a good starting point for newcomers, but it is polished enough that even veterans will enjoy the experience. Gameplay: Easy to complete but remains enjoyable throughout. Graphics: The hand-drawn visuals look great, but the close-up character animations are not the best. Sound: Nice music, but the voice acting could have been better.

Zombie Derby: Pixel Survival

Zombie Derby: Pixel Survival

Zombie Derby: Pixel Survival is a simple arcade game where the goal is to drive through a gauntlet of zombies and obstacles while trying to prevent damage to your vehicle. This is impossible on the first attempt, so players must use the money they earn from killing zombies to purchase vehicle upgrades. This simple loop of dying and upgrading until a level is passable won’t appeal to everyone, especially players who hate seeing mobile releases on PC. Nevertheless, the game can be fun, and the new art style is an improvement over the previous two titles in the series. Gameplay: The gameplay loop is straightforward, as all players have to do is kill zombies and make it to the end of the level with their vehicle intact to proceed to the next. Graphics: Pixel Survival features a new art style for the series, making it look less gruesome and much more lighthearted than the previous titles. Sound: The guitar-driven soundtrack is decent, and the sound effects are suitable for a zombie game.

Guilty Gear X

Guilty Gear X

It is a pleasant surprise to see the Guilty Gear series appear on PC and with the right setup this game is a blast to play. Gameplay is solid although the last boss is one of the cheapest I've seen in a while. The lack of a story mode is also a downside but if you like your fighting games deep and don't mind getting your ass kicked then this is the game for you. 2D fighting games doesn't get much better than this on PC. Gameplay: More accessible than the last game but also has a lot of depth if you stick with it. Graphics: It would have been nice if the resolution could be increased but the game still looks good. Sound: Good music but muddy sound effects.

1 Comment

  1. bionoid April 25, 2020
    Reply

    That was smashingly good fun, would gun down hordes of horrific horrors with you all again anytime.

Leave a Reply to bionoid Cancel reply

five × 1 =