Strange Brigade Review – A pulpy, entertaining co-op romp

There’s something satisfying about taking on hordes and hordes of enemies as they all come at you in waves, just waiting to be blown to pieces that move you closer towards your next sweet upgrade or piece of hidden treasure. Strange Brigade taps into this feeling consistently; including a very kitsch style that heavily references the 1930s with reckless abandon. Add in a chatty narrator, plentiful secrets to uncover and addictive no-fuss combat and you have a shooter that doesn’t take itself too seriously – and it’s all the better for it.

A motley crew of adventurers, the titular heroes are out to find treasure and fight mythological creatures like mummies, giant scorpions, minotaurs and zombie pirates – just as a few examples. Each mission is segmented off, usually leading you through a linear main story path with plenty of diversions and secret areas to uncover for those with a more curious mind. I didn’t engage with the story of the characters and lore too heavily if I’m being honest; each stage opens with a cut-scene, you parachute into the map and away you go.

A witty narrator gives you tips as you go along and helps to move along what story is there; initially I found him annoying but I grew to appreciate him, including the regular breaking of the fourth wall when he gets annoyed at your lack of action, like when you pause the game or put the controller down for just that little bit too long.

While it may be a formula that we’ve seen many times before, the game confidently throws you into the deep end with severely large amounts of enemies coming at you at any given time. Your weapons are useful enough, but there are strategically placed traps littered around most of the large battle areas, just begging for you to activate them. By shooting the relevant switches, you’ll have spikes shooting from the floor, fire spurting from doorways and spinning blades just waiting to slice and dice any beasty dumb enough to get in the way.

The AI isn’t particularly strong, but that’s part of the fun; their attacks ramp up as new enemies are introduced, but really they all lumber directly towards you at a different pace, which makes funnelling them into one of the various traps simple and enjoyable. That’s not to say combat is easy; I lost count of the number of times we got overrun, thinking that we had a grip on things but soon finding ourselves making use of the limited supply of health potions and having to reconfigure our strategy entirely once some of the tougher foes become regular pests.

Shooting feels good and punchy enough, though with some of the more damage-consuming baddies it’s tricky to know how much of an impact you’re having with each shot. The final blow is always incredibly satisfying with coins for upgrades flying into your character and souls used to charge your ultimate attack ready to be collected. I just would have liked some more feedback that my shots were registering on the enemies with larger health banks. Long distance shooting is often a chore too due to most weapons being more effective at close range; far away foes and some particular bosses highlight how difficult this is, especially when you’re constantly being attacked from behind at the same time.

The puzzles aren’t particularly taxing or difficult once you know the trick, but they make for a nice distraction and a chance to breathe between massive battles, along with an opportunity to get more gold to purchase weapons and gems for upgrades. There are also cat statues that must be destroyed (the narrator really doesn’t like cats for some reason) and other collectibles to be found. Occasionally a creature will sprint past with a glowing bag in his hand – catching and killing him brings a reward of its own.

I was pleasantly surprised with just how many little hidden moments that I came across and how much I enjoyed the break in tension and action to explore the environment and find something special. The locations demand exploration too; from large Egyptian temples to twisting labrynthian marketplaces and glowing caves with treasure buried beneath pirate ships. These might be clichéd or familiar backdrops but they’re perfect here.

Once done with the story, the game also features two other core game modes that are enjoyable enough on their own; Horde Mode and Score Attack. Horde mode can be utterly time consuming in the best possible way, with a seemingly insurmountable volume of monsters to destroy. I can see this being something my friends and I return to more regularly than the story missions, as it endlessly provides that entertaining satisfying loop of kill, explore, upgrade and repeat.

The main criticism I can come up with is that, beyond the constant shooting of waves of enemies with some light puzzling, there isn’t much variety. If it doesn’t hook you in during the first mission, it’s unlikely to hook you at all, as it’s repetitive in its nature. It’s also enjoyable enough as a single player experience, but you’ll need to make sure you’re utilising traps more effectively and taking your time. It’s far riskier without the ability to get revived by a pal, so positioning is far more important. It’s fine as a single player adventure, but really multiplayer is where it’s at, and I can’t wholeheartedly recommend it if you don’t have friends to play with.