to Rebellion is a development team that has become very famous in the gaming scene thanks to over two decades of honorable service within the industry. The software house, however, has never managed to impose itself with absolute strength, in fact remaining anchored in a perennial limbo that has seen titles of great value follow one after another sadly forgettable works. Among the many titles developed, figure in particular Zombie Army, a spin-off of the much more famous and widespread Sniper Elite which sees up to four players in the midst of an apocalypse of deadly Nazi undead.
The end result turned out to be an unexpected success in terms of sales, to the point that the developers have decided to try again the coup with Strange Brigade. The World War II context invaded by rotting Third Reich soldiers this time will give way to warm and lush Egyptian lands, where mummies, curses and ancient mystical creatures will be the masters. After having been able to enjoy the new Rebellion creature, studying every little element in detail, we are therefore finally ready to tell you our about it.
Four heroes in search of an author
La Strange Brigade is a huge private organization hidden in the shadows that deals with solving any possible out of the ordinary event that could prove capable of bringing death and destruction around the world. Sooner or later, however, things always end up capitulating in the purest and most violent ignorance, where words and espionage give way to bullets, burning situations during which it is necessary to send the best of the best on the spot, in this case represented by four eccentric individuals, namely Nalangu Rushida, Gracie Braithwaite, Archimedes De Quencey and Frank Fairburne. Among the possible high-risk situations to be managed, the most urgent would seem to be located in the heart of Egypt, where an amateur archaeologist may have found something extremely dangerous. All contact with the undercover agent sent to investigate was cut off and strange rumors began to circulate in the areas surrounding the excavation area about gruesome beings emerging from the ground. The task of our four heroes will therefore be to launch into full action, riddling every unclean creature that should confront him and, possibly, save the world from a cataclysm of epochal proportions.
Narratively speaking, unfortunately, Strange Brigade demonstrates all of its stage inabilities. The Rebellion boys have in fact tried to give shape to a work that does not aim to take itself too seriously, in fact preferring to opt for a rather light-hearted general mood which, however, has not been able to convince us in the least. Not only does the adventure itself turn out to be extremely predictable and devoid of bite, placing us in front of an experience totally unable to amaze the user on duty, but the same cast of characters placed to represent one of the pillars of the adventure itself instead revealed totally anonymous and characterless. The four members of the Strange Brigade have not in fact been able to show the charisma that it would have been necessary to express to better help the player to feel pleasure in controlling them, men and women without any prominent element capable of making us identify with them, and the four lines of text written specifically to let us know their somewhat boring past are of little use. What hurts the most, however, is to see how the title tries - at times almost desperately - to explode an impactful and over the top style that is simply not noticeable while you play, a hard blow for a work. that he wanted to make his charisma one of his strong points.
Four heads are better than one
Let's remove the tooth from the first line of this paragraph; buying Strange Brigade to play alone would be a real waste of money. Let me be clear, the campaign that can be faced in-game can be fully completed even without the help of any partner, but it really takes a few minutes to understand how the real beating heart of the experience is based on online co-op. If you are a lone player who can hardly bear the company of others, the advice is to keep away from the title, unless you want to find yourself already after the first mission intent on watching the television screen, rethinking with a hint of melancholy the money that you just wasted. Let's be clear, we knew what death we were going to die of, but in the end it is impossible not to experience a certain bitter aftertaste in the mouth once you understand that the lack of friends with whom to live Strange Brigade's journey would make his own totally useless purchase.
Fortunately, the music changes as three more intrepid companions join your game, although the adventure still shows the side discovered in too many occasions. When the mission begins, each player must choose one of the four selectable protagonists, each of which will have some peculiar characteristics that will make him extremely skilled in a given field. Frank, for example, is a master of ranged killing while Gracie, on the other hand, loves to go for it with explosives. Each of these will then have four unlockable powers and a set of guns at their disposal indeed somewhat limited. In total, there are in fact only eleven main weapons and four types of guns to which we must then add the different types of usable grenades. If the basic number of rifles appears rather insufficient, the situation becomes disarming when one realizes that each of the protagonists is specialized with a certain type of weaponry - usually consisting of two or three weapons each -, an element that makes the arsenal available for each character even more narrow. Fortunately, the team has well thought of introducing a weapon enhancement system based on runes scattered around the maps which, although simple and not very thorough, manages to offer a pinch of extra thickness to the customization of your bullet spitter.
Instead, the maps that we will go through turned out to be unexpectedly pleasant far and wide during our raids, which presented an extremely intricate level-design where hidden streets and alternative roads intersect each other thus giving shape to a labyrinth of corridors and arenas. Each setting then presents a large number of puzzles, secrets, collectibles and traps with which to unleash your imagination. As easily understood, the goal that will be assigned to you from level to level will be to get from one point to another on the map while eliminating any opponent who stands in front of you and completing from time to time simple puzzles designed to vary the experience. . The result works, especially thanks to the generous variety of creatures that can be faced that in the most excited situations will know how to put you in serious difficulty, but there is no doubt that in the long run the risk of repetition is dangerously high. Even the same traps placed around the map and useful for knocking out large groups of enemies in one shot, in the long run will end up repeating cyclically, effectively losing charm and interest in the eyes of the user. In addition to this, it will then be extremely important to collect money in large quantities during the course of one's hunts, hard cash obtainable both by looking for hidden treasures, and by eliminating any malicious creature, all in order to acquire new gadgets and weapons that can then be used in battle.
An Egypt to forget
In addition to the campaign, the Rebellion boys then gave shape to two other playful components designed specifically to increase the longevity of their new creature. First of all, we have the most classic of horde modes, where it will be necessary to survive increasingly large and dangerous groups of enemies eager only to take you to the other world. Secondly, we have the Points Challenges, missions in which it will be necessary to complete the required objectives within a time limit, all while we will be earning as many points as possible by eliminating enemies on enemies to climb the world ranking. Exactly as happened for the campaign, both modes are also playable solo, but doing so is clearly losing a lot of the fun.
At the end of the day, the result convinces and proves capable of offering a few additional hours of play, but it all runs out at last with a certain speed, leaving the user no reason to keep trying. Even from a purely graphic point of view, Strange Brigade unfortunately turned out to be anything but satisfactory. Poorly finished textures and games of light and shadows that are not at all exciting merge with woody animations and polygonal models for enemies and subdued protagonists. The final result is thus summarized in repetitive and uninspired settings where only occasionally it happens to observe some successful glimpses. Fortunately, the audio sector turned out to be pleasant, which can show off a simple but apt soundtrack flanked by an English dubbing - with localization of the subtitles in Spanish - which, without ever being superlative or particularly deserving of praise, performs the his dirty work.
