Strange Brigade | Xbox One | Review

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Themed as a classic, old-timey adventure serial - complete with spiffingly British narrator and an affinity for alliteration (which can be toned down if the gusto gets your guts, though I’d advise averting your eyes if that’s the case) - Strange Brigade’s arcade action compiles and injects existing industry ideas with a persistent panache, shaking feelings of familiarity and raising a rip-roaring ride through 1930s Egypt.

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by Sam Sant

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@SlamShotSam

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Developer: Rebellion
Publisher: Rebellion
Platform: Xbox One,
PS4, PC
Players: 1 - 4

Seteki the Witch Queen, an evil ancient ruler, has risen from the dead and brought an army of archetypal movie monsters along with her. This adequately cheesy concept calls into action the Strange Brigade (emboldened for the emphasis each in-game utterance earns), a collection of four diverse and charming caricatures brimming with derring-do.

Spanning occult academic through grizzled Lancashire lass, the titular Brigade are a loveable bunch that each boast unique strengths and abilities. It’s in bringing these characters together in synergy that the game encourages co-op play, so it’s unfortunate that going gallivanting isn’t supported locally. Peer-to-peer online sessions are all that’s on the cards, which isn’t ideal, but shouldn’t present much of a hurdle in calling friends and/or strangers to arms.

If for some reason it does, Oxford-based developer (and self-publisher) Rebellion have done a sterling job of ensuring that Strange Brigade is no less fun when going solo. Not having compatriots around to pull you out of a sarcophagus whenever you bite the dust is, of course, an inherent disadvantage, but customisable difficulty levels and enemy numbers - along with dynamic balancing features, like baddies dropping health potions when you’re low - serve to keep things on an even keel.

In terms of core mechanics, Strange Brigade is an evolution of Rebellion’s past work; it expands on the silliness and structure debuted in Zombie Army Trilogy, whilst channelling the far more polished Sniper Elite 4. That’s not to say the game is derivative, as it plays fast and loose comparatively, accommodating a busier pace resulting from its up-close-and-personal play style.

Strange Brigade’s arcade action compiles and injects existing industry ideas with a persistent panache, shaking feelings of familiarity and raising a rip-roaring ride.

Though rifles are still very much present, here a more likely choice of primary weapon would be a shotgun or submachine gun, which can then be complemented by your choice of secondary firearm and thrown explosive. As you amass armfuls of gold throughout the course of any given level, you’ll also be able to roll the dice on a powerful prototype weapon - like an explosive crossbow or punch-packing blunderbuss - anonymously nestled within identifiable crates. These beefcakes have a limited ammo supply to counteract their immense strength, but perhaps more devastating are ultimate character abilities.

Unleashed after charging a magical amulet with the souls of defeated dastards, each brigadier has three additional bespoke abilities to unlock by collecting sets of relics generally hidden away within puzzle-gated nooks. These hidey-holes can also contain gems which slot into weapons to imbue them with passive buffs, allowing for easier crowd control and with that more efficient use of the booby traps that litter each uncharted environment.

Once you’ve familiarised yourself with the ins and outs of all the singular systems governing combat in Strange Brigade, there’s a real art to stringing everything together into one maintained and satisfying stream of destruction.

When you aren’t busy wreaking havoc, you’ll be exploring a range of lush, forgotten locales that are gorgeously vivid on Xbox One X. They’re surprisingly sprawling, often featuring multiple routes to your destination, all while the sounds of moving mechanisms and twinkling treasures beckon you to double back and scour every surface in search of secrets. The classic environmental enigmas you’ll uncover offer up tangible rewards and ensure that there’s reason to revisit the nine lengthy campaign missions in order to deeper delve their depths.

That said, before diving back into the campaign you’ll probably want to try your hand at the pair of accompanying modes in Score Attack and Horde. The former sees you undertake solo excursions on linear, re-purposed campaign sections whilst aiming to combo kills and satisfy a list of secondary challenges like beating par times and not taking damage. Think Mercenaries mode from more recent instalments of Resident Evil, but with greater consistency between runs to allow for really nailing the perfect strategy down.

Once you’ve familiarised yourself with the the singular systems governing combat, there’s a real art to stringing them together into one maintained stream of destruction.

Horde is almost what it says on the tin, only sharing more in common with Call of Duty’s fan favourite Zombies mode than Epic’s eponymous Gears of War 2 trendsetter. You’ll weather an insane undead onslaught across four exclusive maps that expand as waves progress, and also by your own hand, should you choose to spend gold on accessing new areas and their guaranteed goodies. Doing so isn’t exactly the no-brainer it sounds, as you’ll also need to piecemeal purchase a loadout having started with just a solemn sidearm.

This makes Horde a great place to experiment with new loadouts, which, coupled with a moving base of operations to prevent you from getting too comfortable in any one location, stops things growing stale as you’d otherwise be relying on the same old strategies across a whopping 75 total waves. That’s no small undertaking, so you can thankfully step away at any point and then pick back up from right around where you left off.

Weighing in at a reduced asking price, Strange Brigade feels anything but budget and features enough content that you might call it a steal. That’s certainly a relief, as outwardly it was easy to speculate that the Season Pass and its promise of new levels, characters and more might be required in compiling a complete package.

Strange Brigade bears its inspirations for all to see, but while many of the influential games and modes we’ve mentioned are overdone nowadays, Rebellion commit to their goofy theme with such enthusiasm that they’ve captured a formative time in cinema not previously brought to the medium with such verve. This unique sense of fun will make you nostalgic for a period you probably didn’t see, and by a long shot, while the copious conundrums make it an action co-op caper not quite like any other.

Pros

• Solid shooting with an interesting armoury
• Enjoyable alone or with friends
• Large, detailed levels with seamlessly integrated puzzles
• Lots to do, all for a reduced asking price
• Kooky framing will put a smile on your face

Cons

• No local split-screen support

9/10