What do you get when you mix the silly, co-op looter shooter Borderlands series, the riveting dungeon crawling adventures in Jumanji, and the 1930s World War 2 aesthetic in Indiana Jones? You get Strange Brigade, a 2018 third person shooter developed by Rebellion Developments, the company best known for its Sniper Elite series. It’s out on PC, Playstation, and Xbox.
It’s the 1930s. You play as members of the Strange Brigade, a secret British organisation dedicated to uncovering ancient secrets and finding special artifacts. This particular adventure has the Strange Brigade pursuing the nefarious necromancing witch Seteki to stop her from wreaking any more havoc, as you shoot your way through hordes of undead to defeat the big baddie.
There are four playable agents of the Strange Brigade, each with their own amulet and specialties that match their unique personalities, though one might say that they play into certain 20th century tropes.
First, we have Nalangu Rashida, an African warrior who uses spiritual powers to aid her in battle. As her passive ability, Nalangu can run faster and can drain enemy health with her melee attack. Her starting amulet ability is a ground slam ability, which also sets enemies on fire.
Next, we have Gracie Braithwaite, the bruiser of the group. She is a melee fighter who deals AOE damage for her melee attacks and her explosives recharge faster as passive abilities. Her starting amulet power lets her pull a nearby enemy and chuck them into a target area as an explosive. Then we have Professor Archimedes de Quincey. Thanks to his archaeological knowledge, his passive ability allows him to find secret paths to hidden treasure. His starting amulet power lets him summon a swarm of scarabs that home in on enemies.
Lastly, we have Frank Fairburne, a grizzled war veteran who’s only in it for the money, but has the skills to pull his weight, which allow him to take more damage and explode enemies with headshots as his passive ability. His starting amulet allows him to charge into enemies, blowing them up and dealing significant damage.
In the campaign, you can either play solo or team up with your friends. Your journey to find out what became of a missing Brigade expedition has you chasing after Seteki throughout the world and dimensions. There are collectibles scattered throughout the maps that you can discover, which can give you upgrades or further expand on the game’s lore. If you’re a completionist, you’ll certainly enjoy finding treasure at every nook and cranny.
“Horde Mode” is Strange Brigade’s answer to Call of Duty’s Zombies.As the name suggests, the goal of this mode is to survive as many waves of enemies as you can, with each wave getting increasingly difficult until you beat it or get wiped out. It’s best enjoyed with teammates, as you can get easily overwhelmed by swarms of enemies if you’re not careful enough. Of course, you can still play Horde mode solo, but it would certainly be a true test of your skill and grit.
The third and last game mode is Score Attack. This is a game mode that puts you through a gauntlet within a campaign level of your choosing, but with the puzzles and collectibles taken out, making the level purely a combat zone. Your main goal is to reach the end, and to make things more exciting, there are challenges like beating a set time, and not taking damage. This is the best place to take out your frustrations, as you can burn through waves of enemies with powerful weapons and abilities.
There is an assortment of enemies that the game gradually throws at you as you progress in the main campaign, and the difficulty becomes gradually harder with each enemy introduced. You go from fodder zombies that die rather quickly, to agile ones who run you down with their speed, special enemies that lob projectiles at you, and powerful tanks deal as much damage as you can throw at them. You can get easily swarmed by the undead horde if you’re not careful enough, but thankfully the Brigade is equipped with an arsenal of firearms and magical artifacts to save them from certain doom.
Combat is pretty straight forward: run, gun, and try not to die. Players are equipped with a main firearm, a sidearm, an explosive, and an amulet. Primary weapons range from repeaters, carbines, rifles, and shotguns, while there is only a handful of sidearms. Sidearms are the only weapons that have unlimited ammo, but don’t deal as much damage as a trade off. Your trusty amulet is used for many purposes, but its chief utility is to collect the souls of slain enemies, building up to unleashing your amulet power. Amulet powers are basically ultimate abilities that you can activate once you have collected enough souls. Unfortunately, the most jarring aspect of the game’s combat system is the melee. The camera stutters whenever you hit the melee button and it’s one of the more disorienting parts of the gameplay. It gets quite distracting, but not enough to detract from the fun gunplay.
Strange Brigade wouldn’t be doing its inspirations justice if it didn’t have any puzzles that lead to ancient tombs filled with precious treasure. As you go through the campaign, there are puzzles that challenge your memory, problem solving, observation skills, and teamwork. Each puzzle has a clear pattern and set of rules to follow depending on the puzzle type, so you never run out of things to do while you’re on the hunt for loot and the witch queen.
Strange Brigade has a unique art style with a blend of realism and cartoon that is reminiscent of Jumanji. The visuals don’t look current gen, so they’re not very demanding if you don’t want it to be, as it could even be run on a laptop and still be fun. However, if you want to truly experience the mysterious atmospheres that Strange Brigade has to offer then it’s best to set the graphics as high as possible. It does have some pretty sights and the level designs are natural enough to where it doesn’t feel distracting. The general aesthetic is very much early 20th century, and the guns are appropriately designed to reflect their real life counterparts.
The soundtrack was composed and performed by Rebellion’s resident sound designer, Nick D Brewer. By focusing on percussion, it gives Strange Brigade’s music a sort of tribal feel, emphasizing on the game’s atmosphere of mystery, undiscovered ancient secrets, and impending danger.
A review isn’t complete without a list of notable pros and cons:
+Great gunplay and the unique amulet abilities give the game variety and excitement.
+Though not a AAA game, it manages to hold up with its quirky tone and it doesn’t take itself too seriously, thanks to the narrator keeping you company even in the pause menu.
+You can feel the weight and power of each weapon, especially with the legendary guns that you find throughout the map. One such example is the Winchester 1856 rifle, which can one shot fodder enemies to make up for its slow fire rate and extremely small clip. The satisfaction you feel from defeating numerous enemies in one stroke is akin to hacking and slashing in any Dynasty Warrior game.
+The growing variety of Seteki’s undead army gives ample amount of challenge to the game, and no fight overstays its welcome.
+The uniqueness of characters (especially the narrator) give an otherwise generic third person shooter a lot of flavor.
+Depending on how you feel about puzzles, they can either be too simple, or straightforward enough to figure out without distracting from the shooter element of the game.
-The game’s pacing jumps around quite a bit. You’re kind of just thrown into the story with not a lot of context given on who the Strange Brigade are, who you’re working for, and there weren’t a lot of character establishing moments.
-While we’re on characters, the main characters do seem like just characteristics thrown into a person, and the game doesn’t show you who they are as people, but rather tell you through lore entries in the Journal.
-Seteki is a weak villain who feels like just another big bad with countless minions to gun down.
-Movement feels a little clunky to where it impedes the momentum of some moments, but not enough to completely ruin gameplay. You can’t choose when to sprint, as it only happens after running or a few seconds.
In conclusion, Strange Brigade is a fun game to play with your friends where hilarious hijinks ensue. Sure, it’s not too focused with having an impactful story or innovative gameplay, but it has a certain British charm to it that you know you’re not supposed to take it too seriously. It’s meant to be fun, quirky, and the story is simply an excuse for you to shoot more undead. Though one can brush it off as just another third person shooter, it’s an overall fun game to unwind with after a long day full of stress.
Verdict: 6.5/10.
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