Single Player

First of all if you like good stories this is the shooter for you. The whole game starts in World War II times in Japan. I won’t be going into details here (don’t wanna spoil the game for anyone) but all you need to do is kill some Japs and rescue this one guy who’s very important. Here are few shots from the beginning of the game:

As you can see the game looks absolutely amazing. Maybe it’s not as good as Crysis when it comes to visuals but on the other hand the areas around here are huge and you can blow shit up – I mean everything, from buildings and trees to ground (works in multiplayer too, but we’ll get back to that later). After that pretty short time in the WWII times the game takes you to the future in which Russians take over some parts of the world (sounds familiar?) or something like that – I didn’t really look into it that much.

What about characters in the game? Basically you’re one of four people in self-titled Bad Company. You are the one of the guys who does all the dirty work and saves the world. The modern battlefield is really good, of course missions are scripted but they aren’t as bad as the latest Call of Duty game.

Here are some non-WWII shots:

The cut-scenes in the game are really funny. Some just try to be funny but it doesn’t really matter. The best thing is that this game may look serious (the main plot, Russians, bombs etc) but it’s actually pretty fun to play. Maybe it’s not as dramatic as Call of Duty games or really old Medal of Honor games but it is enjoyable.

Here’s one cut-scene (in Polish) – contains spoilers!

Some missions are kind of long, some are fast and packed with action.

The graphic engine is rather ok in the meaning of performance. True, the beta sucked, seriously sucked, people with powerful modern machines had FPS drops to 10FPS on the Valdez map. But believe me after you update your copy (takes a while, patch is nearly 1GB big) the game works amazingly better – there are slow downs in smoke or huge explosions but maybe DICE will fix it.

On my pretty old rig the game runs ok on medium settings, anti aliasing x 2 and V-Sync off – I get around 30-60 FPS on FullHD resolution, sometimes less when you’re in the middle of exploding houses or something but it adds to the realism ;-)

Now lets take a look at the interface.

It’s very…bad. I mean it works (most of the time) and looks decent but there are random lockups (just try to refresh the server browser many times lol) and sometimes it just stops responding. But again I think they are working on it as I write this and will eventually add some missing options.

What about sound? It’s just perfect. Every explosion is crystal clear and sounds like you are there – on the battlefield. Gunshots are very good (shotguns, silenced, sniper rifles, assault rifles). The lines in the game are extremely powerful and they contain a lot of fucks, shits and mother fuckers (even in the Polish localized version). Stuff like “Take out that mother fucker!” is here all the time – even online.

And yes this game has dedicated servers. Although there are some stability problems with the game stats, logging in but that’s due to the huge popularity of the game – EA authorization servers just die sometimes.

Now lets get to the best part: The Multiplayer.

You’ll find a few modes in the game, the best are probably rush and conquest. Plus some other squad and team based death matches.

Here’s what DICE’s Gordon Van Dyke said about the game mechanics (source: Voodoo Extreme):

“We’ve actually focused on that [the squad mechanic] and made huge improvements to that area to make it more unique to the characters,”

…

“So two guys can squad up together and they can lock that squad and make it private, so that they can focus on playing together as a team. They don’t have to have four people, and they can also manage that team so they can join together and create their own squad.

…

“You’re no longer forced into a squad like in Bad Company 1. It’s very similar to what we did in 1943.”

Ok lets just wrap this up. How would I rate this game?

I’d give it 4,5/5 – just because of connection problems.

Just go and buy this. The retail version can be installed on 10 machines but you can only play on one machine at a time. We of course do not recommend buying this on Steam if you live in Europe because it’s totally unacceptable – even when you get the four pack. You can always unregister the retail version of the game if you want (with right click on Windows 7 for example). The key is assigned to your EA account.

Right now it’s the best shooter out there and I mean for all platforms – PC, XboX 360 and PS3.

Modern Warfare 2 sucks.

See you in-game! Oh and join our Mumble channel if you’re playing Bad Company 2 and we can team up. English or Polish preferred.

Finally, it is here. The most hated and most expected game. The launch was delayed, like usually, but fortunately only few hours, not months or years :) The game is here. And ready to be played. Are you ready to survive?

Left 4 Dead 2 has new and really cool features, but game itself is filled with several bugs. You may get stuck inside a wall/table or and cannot move! Your AI controlled team members are morons of the year and do not always stick with you, so can happen that if you are incapacitated, you’ll watch your player to be totally wiped out, because AI bots cannot calculate the right way and will not come to rescue you! When somebody starts a fire, your AI controlled moron may walk right inside that fire and start screaming in pain and lose hitpoints! You probably remember that video that was posted here before, where human player fell over the edge of balcony and team of morons came to “help” him up, two of them stumbled and fell over the edge too and then the last AI idiot jumped over the edge and fell down, I mean totally down. And similar things happen very often. I think that Valve polished their Director so much but didn’t even try to make AI controlled bots smarter and competitive.

Single player (also multiplayer, if teammates are AI controlled) drives you nuts because of those idiot bots and bugs. Multiplayer is pretty okay, it has 5 of different multiplayer game types (co-op campaign, realism, versus, survival and scavenge) and it’s fun to play.

The game is definitely worth owning/playing. If you’re in Tier 1, then ask your Tier 2/UK friend to make a Christmas gift or simply wait for the weekend deal or other good deals. Or if you really hate your wallet, you can buy this game for 50€. But just look at the screens or play the demo and you will see, it is a pretty damn good game.

But enough of whining, let’s get to the cake! :)

Hint: Click on the images to see them bigger.

Quick run-down

The helicopters are still searching survivors from the infested cities and take them to the safety when found. But unfortunately you and other 3 persons were late and now are witnessing only how helicopters take off and leave you behind. But there is no time to waste, must go to south, where helicopters haven’t picked survivors up yet. So you have to get a vehicle. You go to shopping mall and “steal” a car. But as american cars eat so lots of gas, you can’t get too far and must continue on foot. You will arrive at the Circus, like in Zombieland (damn I’m in love with Wichita :D) and start rock concert (of the Midnight Riders, rumored DLC content for L4D2) to signal the helicopter. Unfortunately the helicopter pilot, who picked you up, turned to zombie and had to be shot. So you fell down (or what happened?) and find yourself heading to swamp. New “mud-zombies” are introduced, but they are nothing special. After going through swamp and plantation, you manage to call a boat and get on the it. In next campaign you have to go and get extra gas for boat. But you will kicked out soon on the shore and you have to go through city (which is under bombardment) and reach the other side of huge bridge and get on the chopper. If you manage to do it, then you’re done with all campaigns :) Well done!

Cool features

Nice environments

Rock’n’roll!

Colorful melee fight!

And what do you think, did I kill that hunter with chainsaw or yes? :D

More details

Santa’s little helpers

Achievements

Check this nice 104.6% of all players stats.

Check here Total Playtime vs Past 2 weeks playtime :P Two weeks playtime is longer than total playtime :D

Mods

Still in love with Zoey from Left 4 Dead 1? Get her back from here!

Other mods are available here – http://www.l4dmods.com/

DLCs

Valve announced on 14th December, that early 2010 will come game add-on, where L4D2 chars meet L4D1 chars in Georgian rural town. There will be a new co-operative challenge mode of play. Also it includes new “uncommon common” zombie class, a melee weapon and a firearm. It’s called “The Passing”. So there goes another 50€ ;) Pricing will be announced closer to the launch.

Also there are some rumors about Midnight Riders DLC but this is probably only a speculation :)

Multiplayer games

Multiplayer – Co-op campaign

Well as you can understand from the name – it is co-operative campaign play. Start wherever you like and play it through with friends or strangers! I believe that your team members will be much smarter than AI controlled morons :) This mode can be switched to REALISM.

Multiplayer – Realism

This is probably one of the hardest playmode. You may choose any episodes of campaigns or play even full campaign (must be switched to campaign). In this mode you must have visual contact all the time otherwise you will lose your teammates because they are not seen through obstacles, no outlines and no names hovering over their heads.

In regular game, you will see outlines and names hovering above their heads, but as you an see on following pictures, there are none.

Multiplayer – Versus

Old good PvP deathmatch – Survivors vs. Infected. Who gets more kills? This mode can be switched to SCAVENGE.

Play Boomer, Hunter, Smoker, Tank, Spitter, Jockey or Charger when in Infected team (class is randomly chosen AFAIK).

Multiplayer – Survival

Prepare the battlefield – throw the flammable items around so you can light them on fire when infected horde is attacking. Prepare the weapons, deploy Santa’s Little helpers, start the show and survive! Another more – fun game mode and also requires little bit tactics.

Beat the survival records! Get bronze medal for 4:00 minutes, silver medal for 7:00 and gold medal for 10:00 minutes of staying alive.

Playgrounds: Bridge, Mall Atrium, Concert, Sugar Mill, Bus Depot, Burger Tank, Gator Village, Motel, Stadium Gate, Plantation.

Multiplayer – Scavenge

Scavenger mode is a probably most funniest type of a game. Survivor team must fill their goal and Infected team must do everything that the other team cannot fulfill their goal. There game/lobby leader can define the win conditions – single match, best of 3 or best of 5.

Sample goal – fill the car with gas cans. There are 3 rounds and team, who has most cans in the end, shall be winner.

Playgrounds: Dead Center – Mall Atrium, The Parish – Park, Hard Rain – Sugar Mill, Swamp Fever – Plank Country, Dark Carnival – Motel and Hard Rain – Milltown.

Screenshots

Bad features

* AI moronity. This VG Cats comics summarizes the AI Team member “intelligence”:

* All of your computer controlled team members are morons, who can’t follow.

Sometimes few of them doesn’t follow and take a break to watch the stars or jerk off, I don’t know exactly, what the hell they do when they must run for their lives. Situation: everybody were in safe room and Ellis was just standing outside the house, in the middle of the parking lot and guess what, doing nothing! I went and kicked his ass, shot him in the face, but nothing. Then I lured Boomer or Hunter on him and only then, after killing horde and reviving him, he realized, oh, there is a god damn safe-house, where he must go! And there was no Charger to punch him inside the wall, from he cannot break free. Unfortunately I didn’t do any screenshot then…

* AI controlled team mates are simply idiots. Yes, run straight to the fire and scream “awww! awww! awww!”, you moron!

* All of your computer controlled team members are morons, who can’t shoot.

* Buggy Charger AI: Charger can charge and run with you into a wall, so you will be inside that wall and you cannot move. What a stupid bug, huh? Fortunately, a friend Boomer helped me out there – it spit and then small animation began (as usual), where my character was shown in 3rd person view for few seconds and then switched back and fortunately out from the wall :P Note: The bugfix was released on 27th Nov.

* Another Charger AI bug that causes such buggy reactions by your morons: when walking on the roof, Charger comes and charges me off the roof, then 2 morons who are on the roof, will try to reach me from the roof and of course they will fall and will be hanging on the edge of the roof. And the third moron can’t decide whom should she help and which way to choose.

* Also was annoyed by the not balanced level lengths. Some of them are so long and some are so short.

* The bitch-witch is blocking the way all the time! Sometimes even safe-house!

* Shooting ladies, who may be dead but not so ugly like the other monsters.

* Stupid AI for mobs.

* When I say something, then I am one of those 4 players, but when I do something, then I am called with my own nickname (slay). So why to confuse people? Just choose one god damn name to call me!

Still hungry?

Check my Left 4 Dead 2 Demo post here, it contains screenshots and info about The Parish first 2 levels. There are also pictures about new features that weren’t covered in this post.

Creation trivia: Live Writer draft: 116mb, screenshots in post: 105, publishing: 15 minutes, first screenshot on 17th Nov, last screenshot on 08st Dec, screenshot size: 1680×1050, total screenshots made: 1140, total screenshots weight: 446mb; playing time to make this post:  15h 25m 41s (total), total bugs found: several

Anyway, let’s get to the game now :) Game should run smoothly on every computer that is bought within last 2-4 years, because requirements are so low. Although everywhere is said that it takes ~400mb disk space, it is not quite right. It takes 540mb  (840 according to Steam) on my disk… For so less megabytes, so much good stuff, it’s amazing.

The game is mix-up from various cool RPG games – pets from Nethack; graphics style from Warcrafts; fishing from WoW; randomized dungeons from Nethack, Rogue or Dungeon Master; going deeper underground as in Diablo 1; imbuing items like in Diablo 2. And almost all of those features were in Torchlight ancestor game-serie called Fate.

As I read from forums, that you can level til 100, and I am only 38 or so, when finished Ember Mines. Now I am heading to Shadow Vault and I am not taking you along. This means that you have to figure out what happens next by yourself :)

Torchlight MMO comes in about 2 years – article here. And Diablo III is pushed to year 2011 :( Article and picture here. This means, that we have lot of time to spend with Torchlight!

I recommend everyone to grab this excellent game with cheap and fair price ($20/16£/16€).

May the torchlight be with you!

Hint: Click on the images to see them bigger.

Introduction

Welcome to the Torchlight – the mining settlement, a boomtown, founded on the discovery of rich veins of Ember – a rare and mysterious ore with strange power to enchant or corrupt everything that it contacts. In deep underground is evil evolving. The town cries for help and adventurers around the world gather to free the town from the evil monsters.

Meet the characters

Meet the destroyer

The strong brutal melee fighter – destroyer. Boost strength and defense and hack your enemies like they are pumpkins. Destoyer can focus on 3 different skill-trees: Berserker, Titan, Spectral.

The most required item is, guess what? – Identify scroll :D At least, in the beginning. Lots of unidentified junk is popped out so they are very needed :) I was able to buy from shop an identify spell, memorized it and now I sell those scrolls like junk. When you start buying every gem from Shops, then you will lack of money. Also when playing normal skill level, then lots of healing and mana potions will pop up.

I am playing berserker and my primary skill is Stampede, the special skill, where my big bad-ass war-monster dashes forward and damages all foes in its path. Slash Attack skill, that consumes little amount of mana, is my attack instead of regular weapon attack. Dual Wielding is maxed of course, then Adventurer and Critical Strikes. On level 25 I started maxing Treasure Hunter, which boosts Magic Find.

Skill points mostly went to Strength and Defense. Few to Magic (must dash all the time :)) and wasted few points on Dexterity too. I just tried ranged fighting in a while, but it is not really worth it. So do not waste points on Dex. Well, when you have magically enchanted weapons, then adding points to Magic will increase the elemental damage.

Meet the vanquisher

Vanquisher is pretty lady, who has expertised on ranged fighting. Bows, pistols etc are her main weapons. You may want to install the naked vanquisher mod, if you’re really twisted ;) I will post more info about her when I start playing with vanquisher. I already have nice equipment for her :)

Meet the alchemist

Alchemist is a geek-type magic speller. Magic wands and staffs are his weaponry including spells. Mage has also mixup style of attacking. Like now, my char has 2 wands equipped, one shoots fire, another ice plus I can cast autotracking spell! As my destroyer has magic find items + skill boost, so I have lots of good junk for him too :)

Cool features

* Pretty 3D environment

* Cinematic view as pause. Very innovative way to pause a game :D And so can be done beautiful screenshots (with SHIFT+F9) also. Most of my screenshots are done so…

* Pretty girls! :D But not enough of them! :P

* Side Quests – Besides main quest there are various side quests also, wizard wants various ember samples, mechanoid (bard) is creating a warsong about killed boss monsters, one rich guy wants you to recover various treasures from dungeons. And when you finish Ember Mines chapter, then will be more side quests available :)

* Fame – additionally to experience points, you can gather fame points for killing boss monsters and completing quests. Max level: 55

And when gaining a new fame level, then you’ll receive one skillpoint – see the plus sign at the right side of the screen.

* Various ways of transportation (some of reminds me Stargate)

* Shrines and in dungeons. Remember those stuff from Diablo 1/2? They’re here too! :) Enchanting shrines act like Enchanter in town and they can create sockets or add enchantments. (Doesn’t work on unique items).

* Armor/Weapon stands, just like in old good Diablo :) And also Dead Adventurers dropping loot

* Small puzzles. Solve small puzzles to get the goods

* Autopickup gold! Every time you get near to money, it is automatically picked up. Cool! No need to click to gather those pennies :)

* Pets!

Select a dog or kittycat as your loyal companion.	Pet can go and sell your useless junk while you are hacking in dungeon.

Don’t forget to equip them with good necklaces and rings! You can teach pet to use 2 spells by dragging spell scrolls into 2 spell slots. And when you shift+click on loot item on the ground, pet will pick it up.

* Fishing. You can play “minigame” to catch the fish and feed to your pet

* Vendors in dungeons. Actually this is little bit strange :) Vendors are selling their junk in the middle of the battlefield. Anyway when you got lots of loot carried on and too lazy to go to town, you can sell the junk on shopkeepers that are found sometimes in dungeons. Just like in Nethack :)

* Chests – good and bad. Also beware of trapped chests

* Maps – Maps to extra dungeons are sold inside common stores. And sometimes in dungeons :)

* Transmute weak gems/potions to better ones like in Diablo 2 with Horadric Cube

Recipes are listed here, in Runic Games forum.

Transmute 2 gems to 1 better one. Also mind, that when transmuting 4 green or blue items give dull gem, 4 gold (unique) items give nameless gems. And when transmuting 3 potions, you will get one better potion.

Gem transmutation list: Cracked –> Dull –> Discolored –> <noprefix> –> Cut –> Polished –> Star -> Flawless
(sample: Cracked Life Ember –> Dull Life Ember –> Discolored Life Ember –> Life Ember –> Cut Life Ember –> Polished Life Ember –> Star Life Ember –> Flawless Life Ember)

* Mods. Lots of mods are here http://www.runicgamesfansite.com/torchlightmods/

From developers: Bees: http://www.runicgamesfansite.com/torchlightmods/node/34,
Respec potion: http://www.runicgamesfansite.com/torchlightmods/node/32

There is also TorchED, Torchlight editor, available, and it weights 2gb according to Steam properties – 4x more than Torchlight itself :D But real directory size is 1.2gb, which is 2x bigger than game itself. PS. It has “hidden” minigame also ;) Find it!

* Cool soundtrack by Matt Uelmen, who created OST for Diablo 1, Starcraft, Diablo 2, Diablo 2: Lord of Destruction and World of Warcraft.

* Developers are very active in Runic Games forums and they are very friendly and responsive. I wish that there are more guys like them :) I am really fan of those people :)

Sample: Maybe I turned it accidentally on, but this what happened. Dropped items were always shown, so when fighting with horde I didn’t see whom I should kill or is there even anyone left to slay. Fortunately that can be turned off by clicking magnifying glass in hotbar! This hint was given 15 minutes later (!!) of posting this into forum by Runic Games staff!! Isn’t that  awesome?! Check the thread out here!

Gameplay screenshots

Here ends Ember Mines chapter and begins next one…

Scores

Creation trivia: original PNG version: Live Writer draft: 550mb, uploading to server: 1 hour, screenshots in post: 82, screenshot weight in post: 132mb; final JPG version: Live Writer draft: 85mb, uploading to server: 10 minutes, screenshots in post: 93, screenshots weight in post: 17mb; first screenshot on 29th Oct, last screenshot on 15th Nov, screenshot size: 1680×1050, total screenshots made: 802, total screenshots weight: 1.36gb; playing time to make this post: destroyer – 21 hours 8 minutes 34 seconds, vanquisher – 52 minutes 56 seconds & alchemist – 41 minutes 14 seconds; total bugs found: 1; mods applied (but never used): 2 (official bee + respec).

PS. Sorry for this HUGE post :) I hope that you still like it.

PS2. Read the manual! I found some interesting things in there after 24 hours of game play :D

Are you bored of all real time strategy games? Then you gotta read this :)

Why is it so fun? Well…it’s huge. I mean really huge. Just look at this screenshot of some random map we were playing on lately:

So what is this game all about? It’s simple. You start on a single planet, develop your base, culture and technology and then you take over more planets. Additionally you can form alliances with computer or human players (trade stuff, see their planets and ships etc) or even form into teams.

Planets are neat (huge gas planets, Earth-like and ice/magma giants), some of them have artifacts which can improve your ships speed or endurance. Most planets are habitable but some of them aren’t.

Of course to build all that stuff on them you need credits, crystals and metal – the last two can be collected from all the planets you have or space garbage floating around. You can of course trade with your team mates or even use the black market.

Lets talk about races here. We have 3 different cultures to chose from – TEC (humans), Advent (creepy sounding lesbians) and Vasari (berserk dudes).

Of course each of them have different ships, structures and technology. Technology is divided into two types – military and civilian.

Occasionally you and your allies (as well as your enemies) will get raided by space pirates which can be pretty frustrating in the beginning. Pirates do have a base somewhere on the map and you better watch out not to come across it in the beginning because they will simply kick your ass.

Be sure to reserve at least 3-5 hours of your time before you play this game with your friends, it can get really addictive. Also there’s an expansion for it (it’s cheap) but we didn’t have a chance to play it yet.

We recommend getting this game directly through Impulse store or buying it in a box somewhere (or cdkey) – you just enter it on your Impulse account (the same as on Steam) and the game downloads. It’s worth to mention that you can always unregister a game from your account on Impulse or even sell it after you get bored with it. But we will get into this in other news.

Another cool thing is achievements – the game has a few which can be quite fun.

And finally the game has a pretty complex Map Designer which allows you to create enormous galaxies with hundreds of planets (!).

Check out this random gameplay video in HD (you can find more on the net) – I’m too lazy to record my own vid ;P

So..summing up if you’re a space nerd like me or a big Battlestar Galactica fan this game is a must have. If you want to find out a lot more about the game read this article on Wikipedia.

Oh..and I’ll leave rating to you (but for me it’s a solid 5/5) :)

You guys probably know how hard it is to find good adventure-platform games on computers – and almost nothing at all when it comes to new titles.

Fortunately Mini Ninjas from Eidos will change everything.

If you haven’t played the Mini Ninjas demo I really recommend it. It’s been a while since I have played this type of game for the PC.

You can download the demo version using your Steam account – click here to do this (you need Steam running to use this link)! Or you can download the standalone demo from Gamers Hell.

The demo needs around 800MB to run in both cases and a pretty decent computer with shader model 3 support (you can check out the system requirements here).

Why Mini Ninjas is cool? I will try to put it in 6 simple points.

Humor and appearance

The game is just fun and very nicely designed. It can certainly be compared to Ubisoft’s – Rayman series. Graphic style itself is a bit like free EA Games title – Battlefield Heroes. Main characters are really fun to observe and control. Each of them has different abilities and fighting style but I’ll get to that later.

Controls

Controlling the game is pleasant, you can figure out very quickly what you are doing  (using the mouse to aim and fight and keyboard to move around and use your abilities and inventory). Of course, there is support for gamepads – which is probably the best way to play this kind of games.

Music and effects

Music is not irritating and it’s catchy – don’t be surprised if you catch yourself singing those melodies on your way to work or school. The sound effects are very pleasing to the ear. Although enemies do sound like a bunch of old people on speed. 

Playability

It is simply curious, you can control 3 characters at once (at least in the demo). We can  find small elements of RPG games – the inventory with various objects that we find later in the game. From what I’ve seen there will be few objects in the game that we’re going to combine to get a stronger item out of them. Also, there are shops in the game (you can get new weapons, healing potions and something like stamina potions which can get you run faster for a longer period of time).

This game is family friendly which means you can enjoy this game on your PC or console with your kids.

Optimization

Mini Ninjas engine is sweet. It plays smoothly on a decent PC. I assume this is not a complete console port but a totally different version of the game designed for the PC – I could be wrong though.

The idea

Because we needed a Ninja game! ;)

Mini Ninjas is scheduled to be released on 11 September 2009. We don’t know if it’s going to be released on all leading digital platforms at this time.

I hope this title is going to be priced fairly on Steam and other platforms…

Here’s a little gameplay video I made the other day:

Since I have Internet access I started to play single-player games less. I mean what’s the point? Fighting against computer bots is just boring in most cases, but this game’s artwork really drew my attention – and not only the visuals are great, the whole story and game play just amazed me.

Can indie studio from Chile create a game that’s beating most known productions of this year? Apparently, yes. Climate and originality just pwnz most of modern games. ACE Team has a pretty unusual imagination and presents some alarming figures. Zeno Clash appeared on Steam (21 April 2009) to tell the story of  family built on lie and take the players to one of the most interesting virtual worlds in recent months.

The main character of this adventure is a guy called Ghat, he tries to describe the problems of his family from the beginning. There’s also Deadra – basically a copy of Alyx from the  Half-Life 2 series. Our main enemy is so called Father-Mother, speaking at the same time male and female modulated voice – and that’s just a few of the characters in the game.  All of those characters are somehow weird and spooky, because Zeno Clash moves players to the world of humans and deformed crazy people.

The story line has a nature of schizophrenia in it. Ghat, which is still under the influence of experiences related to crazy Corwids, escapes from his home town even though he really doesn’t want to. Along with Deadra they visit really weird and creepy places completely taken out from the context and reality. Although the chronology is maintained, there is general chaos. There is a mystery, which Ghat doesn’t want to disclose. Further objectives and fighting seem to lead nowhere. This is a good thing however, brief episodes give us a feeling of concern and arouse curiosity.

The basis of the game are dynamic fights using a really nice system. In general, we can beat opponents with our fists, feet, elbows, huge hammers, firearm weapons and explosives. In addition, you must remember to lock-on your opponent (by default with E button) and use different combinations of dodging. Through out the game Ghat is fighting mostly with few enemies at once. Luckily the ACE Team managed to balance the difficulty level – although in some cases it could be really hard to beat some particular moments in the game if you aren’t skilled enough you need to practice a little bit more to complete the challenges later in the game.

Combat is fast and fun. Shooting isn’t really that fun and easy at first. The game is a bit short (around 7 hours of the story mode game play) but at least the developers are constantly adding something new like the latest patch with more Steam Achievements and the Tower levels (basically a survival mode with few different maps and timer).

The graphics are very good and psychedelic. The creators call it Punk Fantasy.

I won’t be telling you more about the story itself because I don’t want to spoil it for anybody, you just need to buy and play it on your own ;)

Unfortunately Zeno Clash doesn’t have any multiplayer modes.

One more important thing, Zeno Clash developers provided free Zeno Clash models for everyone who owns Garry’s Mod (and Zeno Clash of course). You just need to open Tools tab in Steam and install those models, they are something around 300MB if I remember correctly. Here’s how they look like:

The game is also available in retail stores in few countries in Central Europe (the price is basically the same as on Steam).

And one more thing, the creators are working on Zeno Clash 2 as you read this. Zeno Clash 2 will have a multi-player mode and probably longer gameplay.

Check out our Zeno Clash HD Gameplay playlist on YouTube!

Overall Rating:

4,5/5

First Impression:
Psychedelic looking game on Source Engine.

Visuals:
Very unusual, works like a charm with multi-threading support (that’s the L4D engine).

Sound and Music:
Sounds are fine, nothing annoying, music isn’t great and the dialogs could be a lot better but this is an indie game.

Gameplay: 
Very weird, can be frustrating at times, in the beginning the fighting is pretty hard.

Additional information:

Game Size: 3,3GB (3,6GB with Garry’s Mod models) 
Language Versions: English, German, French, Polish, Spanish, Italian

Price:
EU: 11.99€
US: $14.99 or 10.56€, 88.0% of Tier 1/EU price
UK: Ł11.24 or 13.08€, 109.0% of Tier 1/EU price

Extra:
Steam Cloud support.

Demo version (Steam required)