a) Yeah it does have that "german killerspiele" design to it where all your enemies aren't human in the least. Most of the environments seem to be the same (until the green alien boss levels toward the end) and if you're not using the CD you're stuck to the same few ambient music tracks. It gets far alien later and there is an unlocking reward for a new character however. The explosions could have been done much better - they're slowly animated generic sprites with a muffled sound 🙁

b) It's its own custom proprietary engine. Definitely has some Build and Dark Forces influences however.

c) Anything post-Quake with sprites is generally DOA. Strife already had the "boring lego game!!! avoid" stigma when it arrived in 1996. Eradicator wasn't much better, no matter how much it offered.

I have it though I can't say I've played it that much. Just setting it up in DOSBox and making sure it runs by completing a few levels. I bought it a few years ago. It was one of those titles I hadn't heard of until just then.

Yes I played it back in '90s, and liked it much. This game utilizes soundfonts for sound effects, which inspired me (along with Magic Carpet 2) to work on SF2 loading TSR engine for DOS.

I've tried playing this a few times but, it just never caught on to me as much as Redline does. (infact I knew about Eradicator from Redline's CD because it's the same publisher)

I never liked how in Erad the enemies can melee you harder than you can to them.

Also, I feel like I'm one in the few that actually appreciated Strife's art style and visuals. (as much as I also like Marathon's as well)

I did try it out, but I'm not too fond of it. It lacks a certain something to stand out from the crowd of 90s FPS games and doesn't feel very polished, especially in terms of level design. At least going by as far as I got in the game.

Can't say I really like it, but I guess it was a refreshing change those days with the 3rd person look, weapons and bombs and the notorious jumping sequences.

It's speed sensitive, and unlike DOOM, it runs too fast on faster machines and the movement "glides" too much on them.

DracoNihil wrote:

Also, I feel like I'm one in the few that actually appreciated Strife's art style and visuals. (as much as I also like Marathon's as well)

No not the only one, but there's a lot going on and some vast open areas, so SVGA would have been much appreciated. The details get lost in the blur.

A little update, I think I'm close to finishing the game. It is quite a bit of fun, though nothing terribly awesome.
The enemies are kind of a disappointment unfortunately, as is some of the level designs and objectives.
Also, most of the weapons aren't really that useful...

Oh well, I'll finally have a bit of closure, beating this game after all these years. Part of me feels like I shouldn't have played it and kept imagining the awesomeness that it could have been hahahaha

Where do you think is the best place to buy a copy of this? I want to give it a try. 😁

mr_bigmouth_502 wrote:

Where do you think is the best place to buy a copy of this? I want to give it a try. 😁

Amazon has several for under $1 + shipping.

I just looked on Amazon.ca... as usual, nothing. 🤣 The Canadian version sucks compared to the US version, and I don't think Canadians can order from the US version. 😜

It also comes bundled with some AWE64s along with Magic Carpet 2.

leileilol wrote:

It also comes bundled with some AWE64s along with Magic Carpet 2.

Yeah, that's how I got it... Never ended up playing it, then a few years later rolled over the CD with my desk chair - for some reason it was laying on the floor. D'oh!

mr_bigmouth_502 wrote:

I just looked on Amazon.ca... as usual, nothing. 🤣 The Canadian version sucks compared to the US version, and I don't think Canadians can order from the US version. 😜

Really? 'Murican here, and I've ordered from amazon.ca, amazon.co.uk, and amazon.fr before.

I just looked it up and it may be possible for Canadians to order from Amazon.com, since they listed average shipping prices to Canada, though if that's the case I'm not sure why there would be a separate .ca site. 😜

Finally beat it. So, the last set of levels put an emphasis on fast pace action and there are a lot more enemies (and tougher too!) this time round. Needless to say, it was a lot more fun and in the end I was smiling at my screen as I beat the final boss. 😀
Another link to my childhood has been thoroughly investigated I guess. My dad had a subscription to a certain PC related magazine and since around 1995-1996 they started including cd-roms filled with software and game demos. Needless to say, our family Pentium 133 was always full of them, me and my brother were playing a different demo each month 😀.
Eradicator came on one of those discs, alongside Atlantis The Lost Tales and Drowned God, both being games that have haunted my equally. I have played and beaten Atlantis more than once, I guess it is time to play Drowned God!

I've only played the demo, but it makes an impression of a very well designed, thought out game. The engine is on par with Build, but there are also a few extras like picture-in-picture images (well, a gimmick but a nice one), and stuff like remote-controlled drones you can use to operate in otherwise inaccessible areas. Generally, the level design in the game is very good, with great attention to detail.

BTW, am I right that the demo levels are unique and not the same as any levels in the full game? I've only watched some YouTube playthroughs and at least the starting areas for both characters available in the demo are completely different.

I don't think the demo had unique levels. In the game, each of the three characters (the unlockable 4th one doesn't) have a unique small mission at the beginning. They all play the same levels afterwards though.
I think the demo I owned only allowed you to play as the dude and the alien and it always began on the first level. No unique levels!
Perhaps there were two demos?

I do know there was an earlier beta demo with some different audiovisual changes, such as Dan's wall use noise turned into a wimpy "unhhhh~", and with character selection videos being 3d turnarounds only.