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Game Review

Zeno Clash – Game Review

Sometimes a game comes along with such a ridiculous story all someone can do is hope to understand it. Zeno Clash is one of these games. Even though the game has an odd story, it does not take away from the fact that the game is a fun and twisted experience.

Zeno Clash falls under the category of beat-em up, except it is played in a first person perspective, which might be a little jarring at first, considering that you are throwing punches and trying to dodge opponent’s attacks. The controls are fairly straightforward, you throw a punch by clicking with the left mouse button, if you are looking down you can throw a kick instead. Clicking the right mouse button causes the character to perform a strong punch, which takes a moment to perform but does a lot more damage. You can also grab a downed opponent by walking up to them, movement is done with the wasd keys, from there you can choose to throw the opponent or hit them with punches. Of course no beat-em up would be complete without some weapons. While there are weapons, using them can be a little difficult. The difficulty comes from the fact that the game employs a lock-on system during hand to hand combat. This system makes fighting opponents easier than simply trying to punch randomly and hope you hit. Unfortunately this system does not work for weapons, part of the reason is because there are a few ranged weapons, which must be aimed by holding down the right mouse button, but the sword does not need to be aimed, so without the lock-on system you can run into the problem of trying to swing and not hitting. This difficulty is not so much a problem, but can be a mild irritation when you are required to use one to fight bosses. Ranged weapons only pose a problem when you are attempting to kill something coming at you very fast, as you need to take time to line up the shot, but of course you can put the weapon away by locking on to an opponent.

Obviously the game is about fighting, but why is the character forced to fight all of these opponents? Well, the story begins with you waking up after killing Motherfather, who is a hermaphrodite with a large amount of children. The main character is one of these. After waking up the character quickly runs off with a friend. Of course you do need to fight your way out of the town, but much of the story is told through flashbacks. In fact, after leaving the town the character begins to explain why he was there. Of course when you begin to play the game the story is a little hard to figure out, as the story begins in medias res, starting at the middle, but to be completely honest the story while interesting is not something you need to focus too much on. Although the story is told through cut-scenes with the same graphics as the in-game graphics. The game is very visceral, and the graphics portray this, with blood and dirt covering the hands of the player, while characters will bleed and exhibit damage. Unfortunately for some, this game may be a little too graphic intensive for you to run it on your system.

While the game has its fun moments, it is short. The game takes a little over four hours to complete, but that does not mean it is not worth the money. On steam it is around twenty dollars, so you basically pay about 5 dollars an hour. Which is definitely worth it. As for system requirements, even on the lowest texture settings it still looks pretty good, but if you really want to get everything out of it you should try to have at least something close to the recommended settings. Now for the rating, to be honest if you have the system to run this then you should definitely get it, I would consider this a cool plus, but considering its length it may be more of a cool minus. Basically this is a must own, particularly if you like beat-em ups.

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About The Author

Genuwine Jon Hammer

The self proclaimed "Genuwine" Jon Hammer, currently a student studying at Digipen Institute of Technology to be a programmer. I am a huge pop culture nerd, so movies, music, tv, podcasts, and games are all important to me, in fact if I often post about such topics on my twitter.

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Article Information

  • Posted: Wednesday, May 6th, 2009
  • Author: Genuwine Jon Hammer
  • Filed Under: Games, PC, Review
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