Strange Brigade was provided free by Rebellion to review.
When Borderlands came out I was never interested in it. Wiggin tried it and liked it but like a lot (if not all) of people the ending left something to be desired (putting that mildly of course.) Ignoring that, the game was fun to play with in coop. I rather enjoyed it, with or without friends and became a fan of the series with its very minimalist story and focus on comedy and loot. When Borderlands 2 came out, well one problem was my crappy computer at the time couldn’t run it so I waited awhile to play it. It was heavily refined from the first one, a bit more story (and of course plenty of loot) and of course plenty of comedy. I found the story far more interesting and really wanted to know more but of course they rarely do anything outside dub-step and “BAZILLIONS OF LOOT.” The Pre-Sequel was mostly the same but actually had focus on the story which I really enjoyed.
The problem I had with all the Borderlands games was exactly that, other than the gamers urge to find “bigger, better guns,” I always wanted more about the story or some kind of goal ingame other than finishing it. I can only keep going so much with “loot” as a reason to keep playing. The game play is fun yes but still.
The atmosphere is nice and feels authentic. (Note: This is the free, limited time to download character Winston Bey.)
Enter Strange Brigade. Taking place in the 1930’s (yes, live out your inner Indiana Jones happily) an ancient evil queen has been unearthed and her curse is now growing, attempting to take over the world. The Strange Brigade (with a very entertaining narrator that helps throughout the game) attempts to stop her power from growing and defeat her army of endless mummies, witch doctors, soldiers and other creatures (yes live out your inner The Mummy (NOT THE TOM CRUISE REMAKE) scenes by screaming at a mummy.)
One of the four characters you can play each have there own unique powers (except the free 5 hero added after launch which is a mix of the other four) through use of an amulet and access to a small arsenal of weapons (which everyone can use regardless) of sub machine guns, rifles, and shotguns which you can also unlock more as you progress and gather more money from the places you travel to.
While the Strange Brigade is about saving the world, it is also about making money to unlock more weapons and explosives and gathering artifacts which if you gather all the ones on a mission, gives you a skill point which lets you unlock any amulet on any character you please. In other words you don’t get the skill point locked to the character you played to get it.
While not an “open world” like Borderlands, each mission you go on allows you to bring up to three friends (with the enemy scaling to the number of people have) while attempting to the get through puzzles and traps to win. The overall story is interesting but still simple and each new enemy (or boss) gets there own intro scene (sound familiar?) that shows you just how deep in the sand you are.
Coop screen allows you to choose which character, weapons, and abilities you want.
However there is a limited amount of weapons and abilities to choose from.
Some minor problems though, like Borderlands whomever gets to the loot first gets it. Which is fine when you’re with friends you can be polite and ask “can I have that?” but when it’s random people, the people that know were to go will run for it, take it, and if it’s a gem (that you can apply to a weapon for better stats) you can’t get it. You don’t get a duplicate and you can’t trade with them.
New enemy introduction scene. Yes, skeletons.
Another problem, seems to be the forced replay-ability. Certain maps have areas/puzzles locked that only one character can access and if you’re not playing him (The Professor) you have to go back and do it again. While not that horrible, it is a bit annoying.
The few weapons you get in the main campaign also leaves something to be desired. If you were to go through the story line and get all the money you possibly could, you can buy the few weapons available before the last ¾ of the whole campaign. More will be added later but it’ll be locked behind the season pass.
One last thing to note but it seems to be only happening to me, every once in awhile there seems to be an audio/freezing issue. Whenever a bunch of sounds happen at once the game starts to slow, the audio goes static, then the game freezes for a few seconds. This also always happens when a swarm of bats fly by but the rest of the time it’s random. Since I run on Vulkan (not using Windows 10 so no DirectX12) I can only assume that’s it. My coop partner did not have this issue. The game still runs normally most the time but it’s during these times when a horde battle is happening that this can get me killed.
Exploring a tomb. Where’s Lara when you need her?
Overall this game is enjoyable. A bit short on the main campaign but horde and time mode can keep you going if need be. The narrator is enjoyable to hear, the story is decent, horde battles are fun and varied areas to fight them along with traps makes fighting them an enjoyable time instead of just “the same thing again.” The bosses are also quite unique and give you a better sense of fighting than ‘just another horde.’ However from what I’ve read, try and only play with friends. Risking it with randoms might be the downside of this because of not working together to get loot. This may be fixed in time.
What could possibly go wrong here?
