Zeno Clash in 20 words, in no particular order:

Broken man kills hermaphrodite progenitor, siblings get angry. Chase ensues. Lots of melee. Blind marksman. Source Engine goodness. Fish guns.

Also: torches.

You’ve just learned everything you need to know about Zeno Clash!

In all seriousness, $20 indie darling Zeno Clash is an FPS-with-emphasis-on-fighting (much like Condemned, if Condemned were set in tribal times and everyone was either a bird, a chicken, a pig, or ugly) from the Chilean ACE Team, their first commercial release. For the Source Engine–and I say this as someone who has both worked with the engine and played nearly every game built upon it–it’s very well polished, and the level geometry defies the typical brushes-with-prefab-decorations of most Source games. It’s also pretty innovative on the gameplay front–very few games these days put fisticuffs at the forefront as this does.

The graphics are spectacular, with perfect shaders rounding off well-designed characters and levels. The fights can be frustrating, very frustrating, actually, but once you get the hang of the punch-people-a-lot-then-shoot-them-then-skullbomb triangle, you can win almost every fight easily.

Although many people complain about the monotony of the constant fights, it was broken up for me by the occasional introduction of “big guys” as I called them, semi-bosses which you can only fight and kill using huge blunt weapons such as anvils and hammers. There is also a section in the middle of the game–coincidentally, the End of the World–in which you are required to keep torches alight using a magic wand that shoots insta-kill fireballs. It’s a lot cooler and more fun than it sounds as I describe it.

In short (and Zeno Clash is short :P), I thoroughly enjoyed the game. I finished it, and any game which I finish must have done quite a few things right. It’s a compelling experience, and for $20 it can’t be beat. ACE Team’s inaugural commercial outing is worthy of a spot on a store shelf–maybe one day they’ll pick up a publisher and go for it. But, for all its faults in the combat and the occasional patchy voice acting, this is a great game–even though the ending will remind you a lot of an unfinished story.

Zeno Clash can be purchased for $20 on Steam, and I recommend any and everyone to do so.