The game can be crushingly difficult, but it always remains engrossing. Despite going back and forth between loving and hating it, I’m still addicted some 20 hours later.

As unforgiving, repetitive, and frustrating as it can be, the urge to jump back into the game and take out that frustration on hordes of enemies to the tune of the most-proper soundtrack with a toy box of guns is hard to resist. Strafe wears its influences on its sleeve but stands on its own as a fun, intense, and fast-paced shooter with distinguishable charm.

Over and over again, you will die. Maybe you’ll get better, faster, more responsive to the various threats that assault you. Maybe you’ll learn all the tricks and strategies needed to steamroll most enemies like target practice at a gun range. This still won’t help you when you round a corner and get ganked by some goddamned sentry the second before you reload. Then you get to watch the blood stream down your screen before you start the whole ordeal over again. Perhaps this masochistic dance will light a flame in your heart. You’ll think to yourself, “Finally! A game with some real challenge!” To you, I say good luck, godspeed and always be reloading. You’ll run out of health long before you run out of ammo.

As far as frantic FPS's go, this is one of the best, but poor AI and a ramped up difficulty might prove too much for some.

Strafe isn't bad, but there are many better ways to satiate your nostalgia for '90s FPS titles.

The sad reality is Strafe exasperates as much as it exhilarates. For every fleet footed show of sharp shooting it conspires to blast itself in the food with devious tactics and a steady slew of quite ‘fuuuuu!’ moments to players brave enough to endure the onslaught. There’s a really solid, often graceful FPS in here, one beefed up with generous side content – the 10 room horde mode-esque Murderzone and online speedruns break up the crushing campaign. Yet ultimately, you can’t quite outflank Strafe’s unfair, overwhelming slaughter.

STRAFE is a roguelike FPS that tries too hard to remind us of “the good old times”, but since it lacks any depth and quality, it fails hard on every level. The game is a mix of horrible graphics (although that was the excuse for the XX century feel), awful story (again “on purpose”), one of the worst AI opponents ever and questionable shooting.