What happens when you mix a kooky world like the Oddworld series with the action of Half Life and a fighting game? You get Zeno Clash. An oddity among gaming clichés and genres. Zeno Clash is developed by a small Chilean development team called ACE team.
Zeno Clash is a mash up between a first person shooter and a brawler. The story goes that the protagonist, Ghat, has killed FatherMother, a half man half vulture like character and the game traces your path to that moment, explaining the actions you took in retrospect.
After you kill FatherMother, you meet up with Deadra, a women with horns growing from her head and try to run away from your siblings that are after you. As you and Deadra move deeper into the wilderness you see all sorts of odd environment and crazy characters such as the ones called Corwids. People that are just insane.
While the engine(Source) seems dated, some of the design of the environments are astounding and unique, I have never seen anything like it. I often stopped to marvel in wonderment the sheer awesomeness of some of the scenes. Playing Zeno Clash really makes you feel like you are playing a game in a world you have never been to unlike the many stereotypical setting of many other games.
Lets get a few things straight, the brawling aspect of the game is really good. It is perhaps the best part of the game. Melee combat I dare say is even better than say The Chronicles of Riddick game. You can block, juke, counter, strong punch and pull many other moves depending on the direction key and action button you press.
It feel right and very responsive. The targeting system however is not as tight as it could be and sometimes you might fail to target an opponent that is off the center of your screen. The brawling sequences take place in arenas or in some sequences that are triggered(or scripted). Unfortunately, enemy types are repeated too often and isn’t as diverse and the environments.
In between the arena type battles there are these sequences where you move around in a level and use your projectile weapon. These sequences are perhaps the weakest part of Zeno Clash as you will only hope to rush through these sections to get to the brawling parts. The levels are extremely linear and the action of shooting at things are simply put, quite boring even if the weapon design is quite fresh.
Zeno Clash is a short game. You’ll probably finish it in 2 to 3 hours of non stop playing. The story ends in an anti climatic moment of bewilderment. The shooting is not fun and the level design is weak(apart from the excellent visual design).
Even though this may seem like a negative, I’m more inclined to forgive the flaws in Zeno Clash than to overlook it. Zeno Clash offers something fresh, new and some very good brawling action that many brawlers(there hasn’t been many of them) don’t do half as well.
The good:
- Great brawling action
- Unique visuals
- Original environments
- Interesting lore
The bad:
- Weak level design
- Boring shooting action
- Boring in between levels
- Rather short
Price : USD$19.99
Availability : Steam
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