Strife: Quest for the Sigil

It’s hard to believe this was made on the doom engine back in the day as this feels more like a contemporary of quake and duke nukem rather than the likes of heretic or hexen. Regardless, this is yet another fantastic shareware game from back in the day proving how little wrong these indie games could do.

What's really interesting about this game being made on the doom engine is how you can interact with not just npcs but the enemies during gameplay, some of which are even voice acted like the main villain was in hexen, although like hexen our main hero doesn't say anything in game. I was also heavily reminded of Cortana from the halo series as you quickly acquire a sidekick known as blackbird who contacts you via an intercom throughout the game and has a similar dynamic with our hero that her Ai successor has with the master chief in her respective franchise. As for the gameplay, it’s very similar to hexen as it’s a combination of an fps and a puzzle game, only with the added mechanic of interacting with npcs to spice up the formula. Some of these npcs are merchants which allow you to buy items for your inventory, further adding onto the mechanic from heretic of choosing when to use items in your quest. As there's interactivity with the npcs in this game, the story is far more complex than other shareware games including moments where you question whose side you're really on, it’s not on system shocks level, but it's a step up from the throwaway backstories from doom and heretic. The weapons aren't particularly interesting, though that's forgivable given how much this brings to the table of the doom formula in other ways.

It’s a fantastic game that's worth checking out, although maybe go with the anniversary edition to get around the admittedly weak graphics of the original.