Strange Brigade – Review

Strange Brigade – Plenty of tea, missing a crumpet or two.
Rebellion, known for their Sniper Elite franchise, has brought us pulp adventure style 3rd person shooter with an emphasis on squad play.

Based in the 1930s, a hapless Egyptologist has released the long-dead witch queen Seteki and her army of undead mummies and the Strange Brigade has been sent to stop her.

The Strange Brigade is, as the name suggests, rather an odd mix of characters. Frank Fairburne, a British soldier and relation to Sniper Elite’s own Karl Fairburne, who shares a penchant for bolt action rifles. Gracie Braithewaite, a factory girl from Lancashire, Archimedes de Quincey an Oxford scholar and archaeologist and Nalangu Rushida, a Maasai warrior from Kenya.

For those that purchase the game in the 30 days post launch, you will be able to add British/African explorer Winston Bey to the brigade for free.

The characters are all unique in appearance and have distinct personalities which come to the forefront through their tongue in cheek one-liners throughout the game. They all start with unique weapon load outs of your standard semi-automatic/bolt action rifles, submachine guns and shotguns. They also equip throwable explosives including grenades, Molotov cocktails and dynamite.

The characters each possess and mystical amulet which is used for harvesting souls when you have blasted away hordes of undead and sent them to the afterlife, again !! Once the amulet is filled, you can unleash a special ability to help eliminate those ghastly ghouls, some of them are very effective such as Gracie’s ability to summon a sentinel to shoot plasma at the endless stream of mummies, Nalangu also has a useful splash damage move and Archimedes can turn the bags of bones into er….. chickens.

The game takes you through jungles, tombs and even long forgotten pirate coves, each time throwing waves and waves of undead creatures at you. There are several types of enemies you will encounter and often they appear all at once. You have your standard mummies and skeletons but then you have armoured undead warriors equipped with sword and shield, throwing spreads, fire breathers and even Minotaurs. The weapons equipped in the first couple of levels quickly feel inadequate but luckily Rebellion have provided levels full of Indiana Jones style traps which you can trigger by shooting them and take out multiple mummies at once and they prove essential in later levels when the screen is full of things risen from the grave, trying to send you to yours. There are traps hidden designed to inhibit you also but none of them actually present great enough of a risk to actually be concerned about.

The levels a have several collectable items hidden throughout each level, there are books which each offer a little insight into the main characters. As with Sniper Elites hidden eagles, the Strange Brigade have to keep an eye out for 4 urns hidden throughout each level though offer no reward for actually finding them all. Some hidden chests reward you with gems which you can attach you your weapon to provide an added damage bonus. The most important hidden items are relics, there are 6 in each level and once collected they are added to your journal. Once you have collected a full set of 4 relics, a skill point is unlocked which you can use to buy a new amulet special ability for the character of your choice each of whom have 4 skills to chose from; I found this a handy feature which encouraged replays of early levels rather than relying on an experience points style progression system.

The relics are hidden in parts of the maps which usually require puzzles to be solved, these are quite basic however in which you simply have to locate symbols in the environment and match those on the doors to them or activate switches, nothing too taxing.
There is no doubt that where this game really shines is with the multiplayer aspect, playing through the levels with up to 3 other friends makes the game so much more fun.

The levels change when playing with teammates, enemies are automatically stronger and there are far more of them, amulets and traps becoming a necessity. Puzzles also vary requiring more actions and requiring each added team member to get involved in activating pressure plates. The game encourages a bit of friendly completion with gold not being shared between players when unlocking hidden chests, it’s dished out of a first come first served basis.

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It’s not all glistening gold though I’m afraid, gunplay can feel clunky and laboured, especially on the first couple of missions. This is most noticeable when encountering boss type bad guys; some of them sport small target areas which you are required to hit in order to take down their health but each time you hit it feels like luck rather than skill due to the sticky aiming system. The game is played in 3rd person but the lack of ability to change which shoulder the camera sits becomes a bit of a hindrance, especially in tight congested areas when you often find yourself blocking your squad’s line of sight or vice versa.

The game is very attractive in both style and environment featuring skyboxes which could easily put AAA titles to shame and when playing solo there is plenty of time to take in the sights whilst searching for the hidden items with no distractions from any AI assistance.
There are time score attack modes and horde modes in which to compete with friends but I fear the sticky gunplay and simple puzzles may mean there just isn’t enough to keep some players hooked, there isn’t much in a sense of story other than a few short clips at the beginning of each mission.

I, however, find the pulp adventure very charming, the 1930s stylisation with over exaggerated English pomp from who I see as the real star of the game, the narrator. He provides a witty tongue in cheek dialogue to accompany the Brigade’s adventures, he even asked me for tea with 2 sugars when I paused the game and he clearly shares my hatred for cats. The pleasant environments and clever level designs have left me feeling like I have had a jolly good time old bean.