Zeno Clash Review

Never before have I had the pleasure of playing such an odd game. Coming from independent developers, ACE Team and is powered by Valve's Source Engine. First off let me say, it's one of the most original uses of the engine I've ever seen, and I love the style it brings. But onto the game itself.

Taking place in a world known as Zenozoik (yes, it does get weirder), you control a young man called Ghat who is on the run from his rather violent siblings, after he killed Father-Mother, who is a hermaphroditic, erm.. thing, that spawns all kinds of odd humanoid creatures, yourself included. You are yet to learn the reason why you killed Father-Mother, but the story is told through current times, and also flashbacks, leading up to said event, giving you a nice clear - and by clear, I mean confusing as hell - picture of the whole story. You are accompanied by a female humanoid, called Deadra. Together you will learn why you killed Father-Mother, and you'll have fun doing it.

Built on the Source engine, it's not primarily an FPS, as you may expect, in fact it can be more accurately described as a first person brawler. Sure, there are guns, but you'll hardly be using them for most fights are better won with use of your fists. You'll learn the basics of hand-to-hand combat in a dream sequence at the beginning of the game. While the controls work well enough, it can be tricky to pull off certain moves as you progress, but you can get use to it, and it's satisfying to grab someone and knee them in the face before throwing them into another combatant.

The art style of the game is standout, the environments are different in each area you visit, and they're all visually wonderful. The character design follows this example, with some fantastic models and intriguing looks for them - however, since the game is told through flashbacks and present day events, you'll come across the same models and you'll soon get tired of them, no matter how interesting they are to look at.

When you're doing your first person ass kicking's, you can see bruises and cuts appearing on your victims, not realistic in any sense of the word, but a nice detail and not something I was expecting to be honest. When a fight starts, you are greeted with a versus screen, like a one-on-one fighter, where you see your picture, a ‘VS' then your opponents, which will often times be in groups, rather than just one person.

It can take a while to get use to the combat as mentioned, but pretty soon you'll be dancing around hurling enemies into each other so you can focus on one in particular, then move onto the next. You'll be owning entire groups of enemies, with no guns in sight, and it feels good.

The sound is as excellent as the visuals, the music fits perfectly, the voice acting is good and the impact sound effects are spot-on.

Despite the fact the game is a bit of a one trick pony (go to one area, fight everyone, go to next area, rinse and repeat) I couldn't help but play it. There was something about wanting to see the next area, the next freak of a creature the game could throw at me, it kept me going and to it's credit, all the new things I was seeing were interesting enough to make me want to see what's next.

You'll probably be looking at around 7-8 hours of gameplay here, more than enough considering the price nowadays. It wouldn't' quite have cut it as a full retail release, I don't think, not least of all because of it's lack of multiplayer in a world where everything, unfortunately, needs multiplayer. The single player campaign finishes, and you have some challenges after that, but when it's done, it's done.

Currently available on Steam for the sum of £11.24/$14.99/€11.99 I'd say it's worth it's price. It deserves to be played, if only for it's first person brawling nature and it's fantastic visual style. Fully recommended to anyone wanting to try something different to today's flood of FPS'.