I don’t know for sure if it was my money or just my choice, but I went with Strife (1996). I chose it in the store after a long deliberation, my uncle was trying to get me to go with Half Life but I was drawn in by something on the back of the box. PC games used to come in big empty boxes with a lot of art and info on them.
It was unforgettable. Basically if you made an RPG in the old Doom engine with the sensibilities of the nineties and an overly ambitious art department. It was surprisingly well written, and I’ve been chasing that sense of an expansive, dark yet cartoonish, novelistic RPG ever since.
You should check into the doom modding community. I don’t tend to play many rpg style wads but I know they’re out there. Some use the doom engine but the game is pretty much unrecognizable as doom (called total conversion wads). Here’s one article with a list.
One called Hedon got an official release and is on steam etc now
They also make some hexen levels (I saw Wrath of Cronos being recommended).
I used to play a lot of old school Doom and stuff like it (Rise of the Triad, Shadow Warrior lol) but I didn’t see anything in that article that was quite as story-forward as Strife. I still love a game that goes highly verbal on me.
Oh wow. I vividly remember playing Strife and that was really something else. It really had its own “soul” or charm or however we call it.
But I can imagine that owning an original copy at that time must have been a very cool experience.
I might have been even slightly younger than that. But after lots of straightfoward “doom” shooters, this was very refreshing. The fact that not every character is automatically an enemy, that you have a hub-like world. Together with the unorthodox aesthetics…
Yep that’s a good memory.
I don’t know for sure if it was my money or just my choice, but I went with Strife (1996). I chose it in the store after a long deliberation, my uncle was trying to get me to go with Half Life but I was drawn in by something on the back of the box. PC games used to come in big empty boxes with a lot of art and info on them.
It was unforgettable. Basically if you made an RPG in the old Doom engine with the sensibilities of the nineties and an overly ambitious art department. It was surprisingly well written, and I’ve been chasing that sense of an expansive, dark yet cartoonish, novelistic RPG ever since.
The magical days of getting lost in a box art and wanting to know and see more. Brings back memories !
You should check into the doom modding community. I don’t tend to play many rpg style wads but I know they’re out there. Some use the doom engine but the game is pretty much unrecognizable as doom (called total conversion wads). Here’s one article with a list.
One called Hedon got an official release and is on steam etc now
They also make some hexen levels (I saw Wrath of Cronos being recommended).
I used to play a lot of old school Doom and stuff like it (Rise of the Triad, Shadow Warrior lol) but I didn’t see anything in that article that was quite as story-forward as Strife. I still love a game that goes highly verbal on me.
Oh wow. I vividly remember playing Strife and that was really something else. It really had its own “soul” or charm or however we call it. But I can imagine that owning an original copy at that time must have been a very cool experience.
I was really young when I was into it, too. Thirteen at most.
I might have been even slightly younger than that. But after lots of straightfoward “doom” shooters, this was very refreshing. The fact that not every character is automatically an enemy, that you have a hub-like world. Together with the unorthodox aesthetics… Yep that’s a good memory.