strife is so ahead of its time, its not even funny
i first heard of this game from ross's game dungeon close to a decade ago, and i've been meaning to play it ever since. sometimes i would pick it up, play for half an hour, forget i even started it, lose time in some other game, then a year or 2 later come back and do the same thing, rinse repeat like 3-4 times, always interested, but never committed. until now, that is, as i'm going through my backlog in release order.
and for some reason, once i started playing this time, i was entranced by this game from the start and couldnt put it down.
see now, this is no simple 90s fps on the doom engine, this game decides to take doom and turn it into a story-based role-playing game. prior to this game, almost every first person shooter was pretty much "go through the maze killing every monster you see and humping the wall, find 3 keycards, get to the elevator", and theres nothing wrong with that, duke3d and blood are some of my favorite games of all time, but the genre needed something added to it, lest it stagnate. so now, you go from that, to this game that has a story, it has cutscenes with cool comic type art, you can talk to characters and they're voice acted with passion, you can take on quests and even side quests, there's a primitive wanted system, currency, shops, items that arent just guns or health, a massive map that doesn't just feel like levels but rather a world, hell you can even go back to other areas at almost any time,, you can level up your aiming and health, there are multiple endings, you have a woman talking in your head, you can even fight alongside and summon soldiers, this game is such an advancement from doom, it's insane.
but i am overhyping the rpg elements to this game, it's rather light on them actually. this is no daggerfall. you don't create a character, or fit him with gear (armor works like it does in doom, so i won't count that). there are so few side quests in the game, and they don't even amount to much, its usually just "get this chalice, ok go here for your reward.", leveling up isn't based on experience, but rather a reward for beating a mission, and only affects aiming and health (maybe also punch strength? i noticed i could gib basic enemies almost instantly later in the game). point is, the rpg elements are minimal. if you want a more proper rpg fps hybrid, well there's system shock. i guess ultima underworld and elder scrolls arena as well if you remove the shooter part. but all those games are rather... clunky.
this game, is not an fps-rpg hybrid. at most, it's an fps with rpg inspiration
however, what we really have here is a co-creator of the immersive sim genre, a major leap from system shock or ultima, where menus and general clunkiness could take you out of the experience, strife just controls like doom, but where doom had a level-based structure and didn't have (almost) any story, strife keeps you going through its world organically as the story drives you. half-life and system shock may be lorded as the granddaddies of imsims, but i'd say strife is the biggest, most important leap for the genre, and i can't recommend it to old school fps fans enough


fight, for the front and freedom and move out

The very last id tech 1 game that stands in time. If you have ever played at least Ultimate Doom or Doom II this will probably be a good one. Played this on GZDoom rather than within Veteran Edition's executable engine.

Having played this back when i've beaten Doom II with the Deltarune Susie .wad is quite bit of a experience. The gameplay retains the original functionality seen from the Doom games, but is a small RPG hybrid taking place in a post-apocalyptic timeline inspired by ancient times, containing a simple inventory used for limited storage of items. Also includes a "stealth" element in the game which HOWEVER is not real stealth, so basically it is very easy to get spotted because, being the fact that in Doom monsters could simply spot you when you fire a single bullet in a huge range.

The story is quite fine, but the level design retains the spirit of those Doom maps most of you nostalgics probably are best known so expect quite enigmatic maps with some symmetrical design, and of course a bunch of enemies ready to bust your ass in less than 1 second if you're playing through medium difficulties and beyond. As a modern videogame appreciator, i am not a big fan of Doom-styled map designs as they tend to be quite tough to do in blind, BUT this game goes a bit further with the fact you have to level up weapons in order to improve your firing range and damage. This game has two story paths as well, so choose one which you think is the most valuable.

Moving out from the technical parts, the graphics and general art style aren't bad as they differentiate from Doom's very realistic looking graphics, while sound and music suffer a bit of blandness. The music in general was one of the things i did not like, which was put in a mood that feels different from the actual gameplay itself, so you got, for example, bland techno tune going on while you infiltrate in a building occupied by guards.

I used to play the game on Normal mode (if i am correct) during November-December 2021 until i gave up when i started encountering lots and lots of enemies kicking my ass hundreds of times in more harder levels (and i was like around half of the game idk). It was worth the play, but this is one of these games i regret playing on tough difficulty at first sight. Strife may be not for everyone as being a game from 1996 (which is three years after Doom's original release) and as i said above, expect Doom styled level design and fuckton of enemies one shotting you together if you decide to tackle this game outside the most easiest difficulty.