Things I own is a series of reviews of games that have been sitting in my backlog for a while or have been otherwise inaccessible for whatever reason.
Zeno Clash! Sporting an interesting title and aesthetic, this game was acquired during a Steam sale at some point in the last year. Really, it's one that the art style drew me in, without even knowing how the game played.
[Img_Inline width="275" height="177" Caption="This is EXACTLY what I want." Align="left"] http://i642.photobucket.com/albums/uu142/Crazzeedump/Review%20pics/Untitled.jpg[/Img_Inline]
Zeno Clash is a first-person brawler with some elements of a shooter worked into it. Built in Valve's Source engine, it sports a surreal and interesting aesthetic with decent graphics to back it up. Unfortunately, the gameplay does not show off the world quite as well as I hoped.
The story is well put together, although quite linear. You play as Ghat, a child of the "Father-Mother". This creature is bird-like and is said to have birthed hundreds of children. The game opens with a tutorial from a strange mentor, who teaches you the basics of the game's first-person combat. From there, Ghat is attacked by a sister and two of his brothers, and then he is led off by Daedra, a female...friend? Love interest? While the game never makes this explicitly clear, her role in the story is relatively small, and in the gameplay even smaller.
[Img_Inline width="275" height="177" Caption="The game likes to pretend she helps you fight." Align="right"] http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/576675527016102123/5C3406AE0CB9F413D350E7B3A77B98EE03A953F9/[/Img_Inline]
The story is fairly fun and intriguing, but some sections overstay their welcome, such as the trudging through the swamps, and all characters aside from Ghat are practically useless both inside and out of combat. Much of the story is also used on flashbacks which tease a hefty secret of the Father-Mother, which, upon the game's ending, is ultimately unsatisfying.
The gameplay itself is quite interesting and satisfying when the player is engaged in melee combat. The game runs the player down a sort of corridor, or a forest with rocks on either side, or other such linear paths, which sometimes include small shooter sections wherein there are birds or bugs attacking. While the shooting is lackluster and really lacking in impact, there isn't too much of it in the game at large and the real meat of the gameplay comes when the player is led into closed arena-like sections wherein the player brawls with crazies in the forest known as Corwids, Ghat's family, or members of a particular gang. If this sounds like a small pool of enemies, that's because it is: most of the enemies you will see and fight several times throughout the game, but due to the way it is structured and the lack of actual "kills" due to the hand-to-hand combat, it seems perfectly reasonable to fight the same few siblings upwards of five times.
Occasionally, there are heavyweight enemies, who can only be defeated with slow-swinging bashing weapons. These battles basically boil down to letting the enemy charge, and after they crash into an object, beating them down. There isn't much that is particularly exciting about fighting them, but one might think of them as boss battles, and they do rather break the flow of repetitive battles and shooting sections.
The game lasts around five hours at the end of it, and there is a challenge mode which I have not yet touched. I may come back to this, as the stylish art style and brawling are quite fun and are more than worth the 15 dollars that it will cost you on Steam.
You can buy a copy of Zeno Clash here [http://store.steampowered.com/app/22200/?snr=1_4_4__13] and you can see more of Squirrel at her Youtube channel [http://www.youtube.com/user/CrazzeeAbnormal].
Kindly leave some criticisms and what have you, my aim is to improve at reviewing.
Zeno Clash! Sporting an interesting title and aesthetic, this game was acquired during a Steam sale at some point in the last year. Really, it's one that the art style drew me in, without even knowing how the game played.
[Img_Inline width="275" height="177" Caption="This is EXACTLY what I want." Align="left"] http://i642.photobucket.com/albums/uu142/Crazzeedump/Review%20pics/Untitled.jpg[/Img_Inline]
Zeno Clash is a first-person brawler with some elements of a shooter worked into it. Built in Valve's Source engine, it sports a surreal and interesting aesthetic with decent graphics to back it up. Unfortunately, the gameplay does not show off the world quite as well as I hoped.
The story is well put together, although quite linear. You play as Ghat, a child of the "Father-Mother". This creature is bird-like and is said to have birthed hundreds of children. The game opens with a tutorial from a strange mentor, who teaches you the basics of the game's first-person combat. From there, Ghat is attacked by a sister and two of his brothers, and then he is led off by Daedra, a female...friend? Love interest? While the game never makes this explicitly clear, her role in the story is relatively small, and in the gameplay even smaller.
[Img_Inline width="275" height="177" Caption="The game likes to pretend she helps you fight." Align="right"] http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/576675527016102123/5C3406AE0CB9F413D350E7B3A77B98EE03A953F9/[/Img_Inline]
The story is fairly fun and intriguing, but some sections overstay their welcome, such as the trudging through the swamps, and all characters aside from Ghat are practically useless both inside and out of combat. Much of the story is also used on flashbacks which tease a hefty secret of the Father-Mother, which, upon the game's ending, is ultimately unsatisfying.
The gameplay itself is quite interesting and satisfying when the player is engaged in melee combat. The game runs the player down a sort of corridor, or a forest with rocks on either side, or other such linear paths, which sometimes include small shooter sections wherein there are birds or bugs attacking. While the shooting is lackluster and really lacking in impact, there isn't too much of it in the game at large and the real meat of the gameplay comes when the player is led into closed arena-like sections wherein the player brawls with crazies in the forest known as Corwids, Ghat's family, or members of a particular gang. If this sounds like a small pool of enemies, that's because it is: most of the enemies you will see and fight several times throughout the game, but due to the way it is structured and the lack of actual "kills" due to the hand-to-hand combat, it seems perfectly reasonable to fight the same few siblings upwards of five times.
Occasionally, there are heavyweight enemies, who can only be defeated with slow-swinging bashing weapons. These battles basically boil down to letting the enemy charge, and after they crash into an object, beating them down. There isn't much that is particularly exciting about fighting them, but one might think of them as boss battles, and they do rather break the flow of repetitive battles and shooting sections.
The game lasts around five hours at the end of it, and there is a challenge mode which I have not yet touched. I may come back to this, as the stylish art style and brawling are quite fun and are more than worth the 15 dollars that it will cost you on Steam.
You can buy a copy of Zeno Clash here [http://store.steampowered.com/app/22200/?snr=1_4_4__13] and you can see more of Squirrel at her Youtube channel [http://www.youtube.com/user/CrazzeeAbnormal].
Kindly leave some criticisms and what have you, my aim is to improve at reviewing.