Games Freezer | Retrogaming, Indie Games and Games Culture: ☆ Review: Strain tactics

Today marks Imraan's first foray into Steam video gaming as he takes on Strain Tactics.

Let's take a look at his review and see what he thought....

"Hi, guys and girls today I will be doing a different type of blog. Instead of doing blogs about retro gaming I will be doing a blog about a PC game called Strain Tactics.

Before starting this blog I would like to thank Richard from Games Freezer for giving me this opportunity to write a blog for a PC game. When he gave me this opportunity I was quite excited as I had never done a blog for a PC game and also have not played a PC game in a very long time.

Richard if you’re reading this thanks a lot mate.

Strain Tactics is an indie game which is available on a website called Steam. Steam has all kinds of indie games.

Overall it took about 30 - 40 minutes to download the Steam software and game.

After downloading the game, it started to download the updates for the game and after the updates were downloaded I could play the game.

When I clicked on the play button a new window opened saying prepare to launch the game. This went on a loop and the game did not load. I decided to shut down the laptop and wait 10 seconds and switched it on again. Like most computer problems this worked ;)

The game finally loaded and I started to play.

This is the opening screen of the game. My first thoughts were that is an action game and also thought that this game was about a virus that has spread into a city or the world. The reason why I had thought of this is because the suit that the people have got on and also the words breaking news appear on the screen.

After seeing this I thought that is would be a fun and interesting game to play so I clicked on anywhere on the screen and started to play the game.

This is the opening scene of the game. The game is set sometime in the 21st century and what looks like a city under attack.

This is the title screen of the game. From looking at this it shows me that the game is going to be in bird’s eye view which I am not really a fan of. I was hoping that it would be in the third person. When I saw this view it reminded me of the first GTA game and I have also played that game for the PC as well.

In the game, you play as a commander who has come out of cryogenic freezing after so many years to find out that a virus by the name of Strain has spread and has infected the people around the world.

The game starts off with a tutorial of how to control your character. In the game, it says to move the character to a certain point. I was using the directional buttons on the keyboard and was thinking why the character is not moving. Then I realised that you needed to use the mouse to control the character which I was not impressed about as I prefer to use the keyboard. This put me off the game but then I thought let me carry on playing and see how it goes.

In the tutorial, it shows you how to shoot and how to pick up items. This is all done by using the mouse. Also if you hold down right click of the mouse you can see more of your surroundings.

After the tutorial, you meet up with the team and then you have the ability to control one other character in the game. At first, I thought controlling two characters would be tricky but it was not bad, it quite easy to do.

As I was playing the game I was enjoying it as there was interaction with the characters which developed the story more and also there were new things to learn about the game.

I am still playing the game and also getting used to the controls.

I think by having an option to use the keyboard would have been a good option to the game was I think this would have been easier to use.

Summary:

Overall it’s a good game to play even though you need the mouse to control characters.

As you go through the game it tells you what you need to do which I thought was brilliant.

I recommend it to anyone who is a PC gamer."