Game Review - Strange Brigade

Game Review: Strange Brigade by Rebellion
Score: +3/-8

WILL YOU ANSWER THE CALL TO ADVENTURE?
Egypt, 1930's. Erased from ancient history and buried in a nameless tomb for 4,000 years, Seteki the Witch Queen has risen once again.
Only one troop of daring heroes can stand against the fearsome power of Seteki and her army of mummified monstrosities: The Strange Brigade!
Explore remarkable ruins, solve perilous puzzles and uncover tantalising treasure while blasting your way through an array of undead enemies in thrilling third-person action that’s certain to bring out your inner adventurer!

It's very hard to just say whether Strange Brigade is good or bad because there are good elements and bad elements, and when that happens, sometimes the good elements will outweigh the bad ones enough to make it enjoyable to play.

But first off let me say that Strange Brigade is not just a "shooter" game. As a shooter it is terrible for so many reasons. But the trap management elements of Strange Brigade can make it fun. Using the environment is basically mandatory, and there are an implausible amount of traps that are meant for intruders like you, except you trigger them to use against the defenders. And if you like doing that, then Strange Brigade can be a blast to play.

So in the end, if you like the setting and you like strategically using the environment against the enemy, you will probably like Strange Brigade.

• +1 Fun atmosphere.
• Cheeky narrator who uses an excess of alliteration. His lines are well-written and cleverly delivered so that although he comments a lot, it's not unwelcome and the quips make playing the game solo feel not so lonely.
• Retro pulp vibe, that is rare to find in the video games and refreshing fun when done right. Strange Brigade largely does it right.
• +1 Great map design.
• Except for the amount of traps.
• Missions feel too long but you can actually exit the game and continue later from a checkpoint, even using a different character if you want. However doing so seems to disrupt the count of blue cats you have collected (and you need all six to access the cat treasure room).
• -1 Boss fights are terrible.
• They involve an unending amount of mobs plus a boss. There's no point trying to shoot your way through. Sometimes you get enough traps to manage the enemies but as the missions progress, even that becomes very hard to use. But if you don't try to use them you will certainly run out of ammunition.
• And every fight involves requiring you to stand still (or move only very slowly) to do something, such as channel an ability or aim carefully; all the while you are under attack from all sides by respawning enemies.
• Maybe it would be easier with co-op but it's a fail as a solo game especially when this starts to be what every final boss fight looks like. The rest of each level is largely easy.
• -1 You only have two weapons, and one of them is a sidearm (pistol or revolver).
• This is fine for co-op, which seems to be a focus of the game, but if you play solo and you have the "wrong" main weapon you can be stuck using your sidearm or having to restart the checkpoint.
• At a minimum probably two weapons plus sidearm would have been better and generally standard.
• Gunplay is basic and the selection of guns is small.
• You can unlock more guns and grenade types, but it doesn't feel particularly exciting to do so when you can settle for something in your starting lineup and play that with every character. And with the limited selection, you are better off choosing a weapon that is generically good than risk choosing a specialized one and ending up improperly equipped.
• -1 You can snipe with a pistol. There is a very-long-range sniping challenge at the start of the second mission "Hidden Valley". You can complete that with your sidearm because your first shot is always pinpoint accurate. Then just wait for your aim to steady again and snipe again.
• Special abilities don't feel special.
• -1 You can buy an ammo-limited special heavy weapon but what you get is random so you might get something useless. Like a sniping rifle with scope when everything is generally mid-range to short-range.
• -1 And often the weapons are underwhelming anyway because the serious bosses are immune to all damage except specific small spots. You can see just how ineffective they can be in this video.
• -1 Character special abilities are boring. A lot of them basically have the same one, which is some kind of head shot bonus. Only one character can open secret doors so if you want to fully explore a map you must play that character.
• -1 The most interesting "skill" is the Amulet power and different characters use a different mix of four from the total pool of options. Presumably this gives them some character and gameplay difference, but the Amulet is recharged very slowly by killing a lot of enemies. So you rarely get to use it and feels wasted on regular enemies, but even when combined with a heavy weapon, it feels underwhelming against a map boss.
• +1 Traps need to be fun.
• Strange Brigade isn't as subtle and clever with using the environment as, say, Prey. The amount of bizarre traps and explosives are straight up implausible, but that's meant to be part of the fun and strategy. If you try to play Strange Brigade as a straight up shooter you will likely just run out of ammunition really quickly.
• You will spend more and more time strategizing how to use the environment than shooting. Your ability to shoot trap triggers will be more important than shooting enemies in the head to trigger your character special ability. Enemies sniping from afar tend to be standing conveniently next to an explosive barrel.
• Often the narrator will even prompt you to use a very convenient trap to destroy a whole clump of just-spawned enemies. You have to find that funny for it to really work. Otherwise it can feel like the game just played itself and you were barely needed. Certainly your shooting ability wasn't really needed.
• For this reason, Strange Brigade is really terrible as a shooter. It's more of a hybrid type of game.
• -1 Sometimes the maps are just way overdone with the traps. For example, at the final location of the second mission "Hidden Valley", almost the entire floor is covered in traps that the player exclusively triggers against the enemy. You get piles of enemies thrown at you and you are expected to keep them manageable by using the highly convenient and deadly traps. If you have to shoot at the enemy it means you weren't deft enough with the traps but you can jump off the balcony and run to the other side to reposition and try again. If you still thought this game was a shooter, that boss fight should dispel you of the notion.