Strange Brigade
Don’t be a stranger – be a Strange Brigadier. Mauling mummies and other bounders is more fun in a team.
Shooting undead baddies – rotters in every sense of the word – from Ancient Egypt is great fun on your own, but one person does not a Strange Brigade make. With the game now on shelves, you should be mauling mummies, pwning puzzles, and destroying demons with three other adventurers whenever you like, but things don’t quite work out that way.
Though the servers are surprisingly quiet, they’re not empty. You’ll have very little trouble finding other people to plough through story levels with. This brings a few advantages, not least of which is the fact that players can revive one another. Strange Brigade’s system in this respect may seem annoying in theory, as you must reach whichever sarcophagus your buddy has been teleported to first. In practice, though, revives are much more likely to be successful than in comparable games, thanks to the fact that you will almost certainly perform the revive away from the highest concentration of enemies.
While it’s every brigadier for themself when it comes to nabbing gold and health flasks, any and all hidden collectables are shared among the group. (I’m not saying that I’ve relied on other people’s skills to help complete my collection but, you know… I’m not saying that I haven’t, either.)
HORDE UP
The obligatory Horde mode is well implemented. Taking place in custom maps, the exploration and puzzle elements are understandably dialled down in favour of more intense combat. You start off with just pistol and grenades, earning cash as you play to unlock better weapons,
IT’S EVERY BRIGADIER FOR THEMSELF WHEN IT COMES TO NABBING GOLD AND HEALTH FLASKS.
ammo refill chests, and doors that hide treasure and health drinks. You’ll often find, unfortunately, that people quit games in this mode part-way through.
A Horde game with four players is a little rarer than you might expect, and a full team will rarely stay full for long. Why? Simply because the volume of enemies, understandably, scales up according to how many people are playing. One four-person round (consisting of 15 waves) can take about an hour and a half to complete. Solid as the experience is, 90 minutes for a single round is a bit much.
Score Attack is the best mode for playing with others. Featuring much shorter versions of story levels where you need to chain kills to keep a multiplier going, it’s ideal for bursts of competitive fun… but hardly anybody’s interested in it! As unpleasantly surprising as a hand from a grave.