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.

Don’t open The Box.

Game Info

Developer: Spark Unlimited
Publisher: Gamecock Media Group
Release Date: November 4, 2008
Genre: First-person shooter
Available Platforms: Xbox 360, PS3, PC
Modes: Singleplayer, competitive online
Reviewer’s Experience: Played to the final level of the single-player game on PC. Multiplayer modes not tested due to lack of players and reliable servers.

Throughout the long and arduous process of building the latest iteration of my gaming PC, I discovered that I was building up quite a stock of free games. One of which was Far Cry 2, which is far too boring to even deserve any kind, taste, or flavor of review. The other was the (Arguably. -Ed.) legendary Legendary: The Box, henceforth referred to as Legendary.

Now, before I go on a never-ending rant, let me talk about some of the nice things about this game. The graphics are pretty good, I’d say a little bit below, oh, what’s a game that all of you peons who might actually read this would know? Let’s use BioShock, mostly because both games utilize Epic Games’ Unreal Engine 3. Now, BioShock was released upon the world in mid-ish-2007, whereas The Box was opened back in late 2008, so I will do my best to take into account the numerous engine updates that can come within such a timeframe. Either way, it’s still fairly pretty, albeit with no antialiasing, something that has always hurt my view of Unreal Engine.

The one main thing I’d like to point out about the graphics in this game is the astounding use of nVIDIA’s PhysX technology. Cloths sway in the breeze, buildings crumble as griffons fly into buildings to grab the nearest meal. Possibly the most amazing thing I saw throughout my whole adventure with this game is whilst fighting a massive Kraken in London, it grabbed Big Ben with one of its tentacles and ripped the building down. I literally messed my pants when I saw that. Cleaning myself up, let’s move on to the story.

Ahem, so, story, uhh, well, there’s this guy, he’s a thief, his name’s Charles Deckard, and he has to steal Pandora’s Box and do…something with it. Basically, upon this happening, the proverbial shit hits the fan, except the shit is made of mythological creatures. From there it’s up to Deckard and his random blonde girlfriend whose name I can’t remember to set off and save the world. There’s not much else, something about warring ancient secret societies and you go to London and…yeah. Listen, I won’t bore you with the details, the story is by no means what you should play this game for, as it definitely surpasses the qualifications of what the common folk call “retarded”.

OK, gameplay time. It is a first person shooter. It has guns, some grenades, and, oh, molotovs. Refreshing.

Is it blatantly obvious that I’m rushing through this review? Well to be quite honest, I didn’t even finish the damn game. As I discovered on the very last level, the elevator that’s supposed to take you to the top of the Combine Citadel in beautiful City 17, er, I’m sorry, the Black Order Tower in the middle of a destroyed and gleefully boring New York City, well…let’s just say that it doesn’t exist, at least for me. Upon entering the elevator, I immediately fell out into the nice, red, bloody skybox to my imminent doom. Yeah, this happened a couple times, so I happily surrendered to the bad game gods and started writing this piece of shit.

Overall, I’d have to say my favorite part of this game was the nap I took a few hours ago whilst trying to beat it. It’s buggy, it’s boring, but it would make a good tech demo if they boosted the quality of the textures and added some anitaliasing to this otherwise meh game. It has the makings of a quality cult-following kind of game, but it’s definitely understandable as to why it couldn’t compete in the bigger markets. In the end, I give this game a “meh (with nod),” sparking that I’d say it’s definitely not the worst thing I’ve played for a while and I’d recommend it if you’re impatiently awaiting some big release (as I know I am) and you’ve got an extra 10 bucks lying around.