Let's Play STRIFE ! (Finished.)

[ghostdog]

Let's Play STRIFE, a Medieval-Punk Doom style FPS-RPG (oh gawd,it's heavan)



I recently stumbled on this forgotten gem called strife. It was published in 1996 and it is the last game that used the original doom engine. Why did I find the game so interesting and decided to make an LP? First because by making an LP I'll probably enjoy the game more and maybe I'll even finish it. Secondly because it has:

-Doom style combat.
-Stats that can be increased.
-Quests and sidequests.
-Sneaking/stealth.
-Some lite C&C.
-A good amount of dialog and characters.
-Multiple endings.
-A decent story.

Say what?


Yes, from what I've seen in Strife so far, it's one of the first games that managed to successfully combine many other elements into an FPS. Compared to the mediocre Cybermage, that has been mentioned with some praise in the codex, Strife is 100 times better.

So, why it was so quickly forgotten? Mainly because the doom engine was getting really old in 1996 and also because most players were probably expecting just another doom clone. Today you can play it with GZDOOM (or similar utilities) and have much better graphics, better controls (wasd+mouse is teh win) , multiple saves and other useful options. You can easily grab the game from abandonia and other abandonware sites.



Since IMAGESUCK has put codex on the black list, in order to see some of the images you must do this : LINK



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CONTENTS:
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EPISODE I : THEY MESSED WITH THE WRONG MERCENARY
EPISODE II : TRUST NO ONE
EPISODE III : A NEW HOPE
EPISODE IV : KILLING TIME
EPISODE V - PART I : BRING DOWN THE GOVERNMENT
EPISODE V - PART II : CRYSTAL CLEAR
EPISODE VI : IN THE HALL OF THE RAT KING
EPISODE VII : ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US
EPISODE VIII : THE ORACLE HAS SPOKEN
EPISODE IX : MASTER OF DISGUISE (AND DISASTER)
EPISODE X : KNIGHT TAKES BISHOP
EPISODE XI : SO MUCH FOR PROGNOSTICATION
EPISODE XII : THE LURKING HORROR OF THE CATACOMBS
EPISODE XIII : THE LONG ROAD TO FREEDOM
EPISODE XIV : ROOT OF EVIL
EPISODE XV : DIVINE VICTIM
EPISODE XVI : EPILOGUE IN A PARALLEL UNIVERSE
SPECIAL : AN INTERVIEW WITH THE SURVIVORS

====================================================






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" The comet struck our planet without warning. We lost our paradise in a single, violent stroke. "

" The impact released a virus that swept through the land and killed millions... They turned out to be the lucky ones. "

" For those that did not die, became mutations of humanity. Some became fanatics that heard the voice of a malevolent god in their heads... and called themselves, the Order. "

" Those of us who were deaf to this voice, suffered horribly and we're forced to serve these ruthless psychotics, who wield weapons more powerful than anything we can muster. "

" They destroy our women and children, so that we must hide underground and live like animals, in constant fear for our lives. "

" But there are whispers of discontent. If we organize can we defeat our masters? Weapons are being stolen, soldiers are being trained. A movement is born. BORN OF LIFE-LONG STRIFE. "

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It says trust no one. That's really good advice, as we'll soon find out.

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Time to play. We'll play on VETERAN level because TRAINING and ROOKIE is for pussies and ELITE and BLOODLUST is for demented elitists. Let's create a player !

Cloud Strife, veteran of the Sephiroth wars and rebel without a pause.




" You are a wandering mercenary, led to the small town of Tarnhill by rumors of conflict between The Order, a well-equipped religious dictatorship, and The Front, the rag tag resistance movement. While searching for The Front you decided to take a brief rest somewhere that you thought was safe. The Order acolytes have been rounding up all suspicious characters in the area. Yes, you happen to be one of them. What they didn't expect, though, is the knife you keep concealed for situations just like this one... "







EPISODE I : THEY MESSED WITH THE WRONG MERCENARY







Hmm, I don't really want to know where we "concealed" the knife. Let's check our objectives... Laconic and clear.

Calling for help didn't seem to work, so we better deal with the guard.

The guard doesn't look too friendly, but let's try and talk to him. Yes, you can actually talk to anyone, although hostile NPC's will basically only express their burning desire to kill you...

The guard doesn't know that he is facing Cloud Strife: self-delusional killer clone, memeber of SOLDIER and destroyer of WEAPONS (how goddamn basic and moronic are these names?) Let's make him understand with our PST Punch Daggers:

You've lost your desire to kill me now that you've been reduced to a bloody pile of meat eh? Phew... Ok, we need to get out of here. There is a guard outside, let's sneak up on him.

:Splat:

Free at last ! Outside we meet a filthy peasant... See ya later, aligater ! (Our generic responses are lulzy, especially in certain situations.) Most peasants just give you some basic info and nothing more.

First door to the right we find Rowan. Behind him is either the layout of a new deathstar or the sewer map. (yes the sewers here are just what you would expect... a goddamn fucking maze.)

:Gasp: choices !

Well actually you need to do the main-quests in order to proceed the game. If you insult the NPC it will most likely call the guards on you, and if you just leave , you'll be stuck. So let's say yes.

Good. Some, uh, friends of mine need someone silenced. Beldin is being held by the order in their sanctuary. There is a rarely used entrance by a small pier off the river, which is unguarded. Get in, shut him up, and get me his ring as proof.

(FACT: This is not the pussyfied Cloud Strife we all know and love. This is a darker , grittier and mature Cloud. It's next-gen, bitches!)

And why should I do this for you?

I'll give you 50 gold and if you return without setting every alarm in town, there's the chance to earn much more. Here take this crossbow, it should give you an edge.

Thanks, I'll need it.

Yay, we got an electric crossbow! What he said about alarms is true. There is even turret-based security. So, we're working for the Front now. Better than nothing, I guess.

Down the road we find a man in robes called MacGuffin. He doesn't have much to say now. So, we release him.

Hmm, this little town of Tarnhill is not so little. It has a hospital, an armory, a weapon shop...

... and a tavern !

Taverns are a great place for shady mercenaries to hang out. I'm sure we'll meet some interesting characters and get the chance to earn more dough... or get ourselves killed. Will Cloud Strife manage to survive this harsh medieval-punk environment? Probably not without resorting to the plot-device called loading.

Anyway, we'll find in the next nerve-breaking episode !

 

[JrK]

Awesome game.

You stickin' with the Oracle or the Front later?

 

[Hümmelgümpf]

What classes are in the game besides Rebel, and how are they different?

 

[ghostdog]

What classes are in the game besides Rebel, and how are they different?

Heh, it's only rebel. This player creation is an option from GZDoom , mostly for multiplayer use, but it's fun to use for LP purposes.

Awesome game.

You stickin' with the Oracle or the Front later?

We'll see. I'll probably leave it for codex to decide.

 

[Darth Slaughter]

man, they made a FM for thief 2 based on strife series, and of course, I'd like to play them with some knowledge of the original. But i never played it, and now... I won't need...

go on!

 

[Unkillable Cat]

When I played this game back when it was new, I was forced to play it on the easiest level just to stand a chance against the bosses, especially the ones toward the endgame. This was during the time I could finish both Doom games on Ultra-Violence without effort. Nowadays I just can't be bothered to replay the game. I did get the "best" ending for it, mostly by accident.

 

[ghostdog]

And after the commercials... we're back ! With the second part of the Strife series pilot !




EPISODE II : TRUST NO ONE




It's time to enter the tavern. Let's talk to the barman, barmen always have juicy rumors to share...

What's the word ?

" The word is... the sewers hold more than just rats and robots. "


No shit. Let's also talk to those friendly neighborhood guards, maybe they'll also have something useful to say...

Riiight. Upstairs we'll find a guy called Harris, He says he works for the rebels.

If we decline impolitely, he'll call the guards and set off the alarm. Not good. So we have the choice to just leave, or to accept. Since he looks like a trustworthy chap, and we're money whores, we'll accept.

Good choice. The Order's sanctuary by the river is their unofficial torture chamber. Hidden inside there's a golden chalice. You swipe it and reap your reward.

We'll see. If I get hold of it, I'll come back.


By the river, we find the Sanctuary. The guard is relentless, but we don't care since not far from here is the unguarded crevice that will grant us entrance.

And now we're inside ! The music changes and this means that we've probably entered a dangerous area. The alarms go off. It's doom-style killing time.

Upstairs, we find a room guarded with a force-field. Hey, is that the chalice in there? Yep. We'll need to find a way to remove the field.

Let's go the other way. We activate the bridge and reach the other part of the sanctuary.

Crossbow negotiations:

We got a leather armor, cool ! The armor works like in doom, it soaks up damage up untill it's completely destroyed...

One of the guards dropped the holding cell key. Time to find our man... Here he is.

So, Harris set him up. Maybe he's not such a stand up guy after all... Whatever, we have a mission. Chop, chop !

We've also found the button that deactivates the force field, so let's pick up that golden chalice...

Human hearts? What are these Order-ites up to ?

No time to stall. Let's go to the tavern and get our money from Harris.

CRAP ! what's going on? The alarm sets of, the Bartender raises a next gen security panic-room and the guards are out for blood !

Common security guards don't stand a chance against Cloud Strife. Harris has some explaining to do...

He'd better. For your sake !

Get lost, kid. You bother me.


Shiiit, I was "this" close to slaughtering him, but I decided not to, in order to get the reward. Let's go to the governor's house now that we have the key.

No , and I don't need one, Kapish ?!

There is a guarded door that probably leads to some fat lewt , but we'll leave it at this point. Finally we reach the Gov's chambers.

WTF? Backstabbing bastard !!

For me it does ? For me it does ?!!! I'm gonna gut you up like a squid, you fu...

:An infinite amount of guards teleports into the room:

Yep, we got our ass zealously shot down, because we were greedy. Choices and consequences people ! Maybe next time we'll be more careful with whom we're dealing...

 

[Heresiarch]

Strife is so awesome. It has more C&C than most RPG out there. And it's one of the first FPS which uses a bloody severed hand as a key. And the Sigil is such a creative and powerful weapon.

Too bad I get extremely heavy motion sickness when I try to play it again.

 

[Seboss]

Eww I played that. But I guess I was part of the idiots who expected yet another Doom clone 'cause I dropped it after a couple of hours (removed from inventory I suppose).

And yet, I played Legends of Valour to death. Am I really that stupid? (For my defence, I only had an Amiga back then and could not play UW)

 

[ElectricOtter]

Oh man, I remember this game from a long time ago. Sooooo fun. Especially after you get the sigil.

I'll be following this LP.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

And yet, I played Legends of Valour to death. Am I really that stupid? (For my defence, I only had an Amiga back then and could not play UW)

Man, do I remember the tripe around Legends Of Valour. It was a shit game, no bones about it. Every single review always compared it against Ultima Underworld, and they tried very desperately to find some good points in favour of LoV. "Smoother scrolling" and "Less up-close pixellation" was the best they could come up with. On every other front UW beat it hands down.

But at least LoV was released on the Amiga, that's another win for LoV.

 

[Seboss]

Every single review always compared it against Ultima Underworld, and they tried very desperately to find some good points in favour of LoV

And so did I when my richer friends teased me with UW, TES: Arena and System Shock.

 

[asper]

Damn, Strife! Excellent game, truly genre-blending

 

[Rohit_N]

:An infinite amount of guards teleports into the room:

Actually, if you noclip through the walls in the governor's mansion, you'll find a dark room where the acolytes are teleported from when the alarm is triggered.

 

[shihonage]

Nice HQ filtering, but it looks like you forgot to enable GZDoom's brights and lights (needs an .ini file modification).

 

[Seboss]

So I gather that as soon as you steal the chalice, you're totally fucked?

 

[ghostdog]

:An infinite amount of guards teleports into the room:

Actually, if you noclip through the walls in the governor's mansion, you'll find a dark room where the acolytes are teleported from when the alarm is triggered.

The governor will pay when we don't longer need him. With a stealth kill he won't be able to call any guards.

Eww I played that. But I guess I was part of the idiots who expected yet another Doom clone 'cause I dropped it after a couple of hours (removed from inventory I suppose).

We were all a bit stupid when we were young gamers

EDIT: and as Fernil said the actual game had only one save slot and some dead ends.

 

[Fenril]

Saw it on a friends house way back when it came out, seemed really cool then. Problem was when I tried it myself. Back then there was no Z-DOOM or whatever and you only had one save I believe, and although strife was a pretty good game overall its just filled with moments where you can make a wrong choice and compromise the rest of the game progression...I dont know what the fuck the designers were thinking.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

Always loved this goddamn game. I think I've actually got the jewelcase for it still floating around here somewhere.

 

[Luzur]

too bad the sequel for Strife never arrived.

 

[Rohit_N]

So I gather that as soon as you steal the chalice, you're totally fucked?

In the demo, I know you had to refuse Harris and kill him so that Blackbird would contact you. Not sure what happens if you refuse him in the full version.

 

[lightbane]

Aaah, strife, a good game indeed. The win-win choice for Harris consist in ignoring him until you completed the governator part, then give harris the chalice, and then kill him after asking for the money, a secret area with good stuff will open.

 

[ghostdog]

Yep, If you steal the chalice AND go talk to Harris you're fucked , since the Governor will always go hostile when you talk to him from then on. If you don't talk to Harris, it may be ok, I'm not sure.

Nice HQ filtering, but it looks like you forgot to enable GZDoom's brights and lights (needs an .ini file modification).

Do you know what needs to be edited in the ini? I can't seem to find any mention about this.

 

[shihonage]

Create or edit this section:

[Global.Autoload]
Path=lights.pk3
Path=brightmaps.pk3

Then make sure that lights are enabled in OpenGL options in-game. As result torches will light up the walls around them, as should power-ups and projectiles.

I only tested this on doom2.wad and hexen.wad, but I assume it works with Strife as well.

 

[Major_Blackhart]

Good times, good times.