Strange Brigade - review.

Introduction.

When bloodthirsty zombies and skeletons emerge from their graves, when horrific demons come into our reality, when the mysterious and inexplicable Ancient Evil once again lifts its head, intending to seize the world or kill everyone, the Strange Brigade stands in their way - an unmatched four fighters with all sorts of supernatural threats. They, however, do not have steep ray guns, like ghostbusters do the thirties of the last century were in the courtyard, too early for such advanced technologies. We have to fight in the old manner, with firearms and magic amulets. I think the idea of the game is simply amazing, I have long wanted to play such a product.
A little about the plot of the game.

The role of Ancient Evil in Strange Brigade is played by the queen, who ruled Egypt about four thousand years ago. Her name is hard to find in the annals and historical treatises - contemporaries preferred to pretend that this inhumanly cruel woman simply never existed. During her life, she destroyed all her relatives, punching her way to the throne, and finally having obtained the desired power, turned the life of her subjects into a nightmare. Of course, one cannot say that such behavior is very uncharacteristic for crowned persons, but the level of villainy is still decent, especially since dark magic is involved in the matter. She allowed her to rise from the sarcophagus when archeologists disturbed the rest of the burial. Now a powerful necromancer witch is threatening the entire planet by controlling her embalmed troops. And defeat her by virtue of an exclusively Strange Brigade.

It is unclear how and why this organization came to light. The authors limited themselves to brief biographies of its operatives, leaving us to think out the rest. In an armored airship hurrying to the scene, a freakish team gathered. In the commercials before the missions, stylized as an old film, the members of the squad talk to each other and with the authorities, but the script here is something most auxiliary, and it was written accordingly. To understand everything that happens, you need to collect data in scattered here and there notes and fragments of diaries, in which there is information about the queen, her many servants and the circumstances that led to the current disaster. The brigade wins Evil by no means gathering information. In their crusade against the queen, the heroes will have to overcome a series of pretty levels, decorated in a more or less Egyptian entourage: wander through wide and slightly branched locations, beat dissimilar ghouls and monsters, solve puzzles and collect gold to buy new guns. If you wish, you can act alone, because the complexity is adjusted to the number of players, but first and foremost Strange Brigade is designed for joint adventures.



The mechanics of the game.

In this game, as in almost any game of our time, has its own characteristics. For example, around bottomless bags of ammunition, from shocks and attacks it is allowed to roll away, grenades are such an infinite superpower with reloading. For such driving extermination of the undead, such conditions are definitely suitable. Each of the characters has its own series of magical abilities, tied to miracle amulets, which need to be charged with the souls of defeated enemies. I noticed for myself one drawback in the game, this is rather weak shooting. The game still has a weapon that shoots normally, but it is completely magical and essentially temporary - to get it and replenish the ammunition, you need to put money in special chests. Permanent weapons, in my opinion, are weaker, including the cooler options for which we diligently save coins.

I would like to say that the Queen's army is diverse, but over time you realize that there is little invested in it. Zombies are ordinary, zombies are in cuirass, zombies are in cuirass with spears, zombies with swords, with shields, with throwing daggers, with bombs. Skeletons with hefty hearts inside - after the massacre of them, the heart continues to hang in the air, and if it is not destroyed, an unknown force will once again bring the bones together. There is also a purely Egyptian flavor: giant scorpions, mummies, wrapped in bandages, and thugs with animal heads. Special, enhanced versions of the latter often act as bosses.



The main characters here simply adore to lock up on some improvised arena and, until the last moment, overwhelm the enemies in a dynamic battle from all sides. This part has been successfully implemented, though it’s worth noting that it’s not possible to defeat enemies, you have to sweat, but realistically. On the battlefield, however, often placed traps that need to include shots. With their help, you can chop the undead with rotating blades, pierce with lances and crush with something heavy; Not without exploding barrels (in the aiming mode, they are even marked in red). Also lively in dynamic battles brings cheerful off-screen narrator, loudly celebrating our successes and expressively commenting on the emergence of any new enemies.

In addition to the puppet Queen, the Brigade is still confronted with puzzles. Sometimes they are required to pass the level, but most often we solve puzzles to get to treasure chests, yet making money and magical improvements for weapons is the only way to progress. There are a lot of unlike puzzles here: redirection of magic rays, plumbing fun, memorizing figures, searching for signs with symbols to enter the correct sequence, push plates that need to be walked correctly.



Conclusion.

In general, the game turned out to be high-quality, beautiful, vigorous and interesting for me in an unusual setting. The game is very well optimized, no lags, crashes and anything like that, I did not notice, for this is a separate plus. The surrounding and mysterious world in the Egyptian style is also very fascinating. A variety of ways to deal with enemies is a good sign of a full-fledged game. And in the end a very good level design, a lot of branches, caches and secrets, all this only complements such a wonderful game. I think I can safely rate 7 out of 10.