Zeno Clash - Wonderful Psychedelic Punk Fantasy

Zeno Clash

I am not a drug culture guy. More specifically I'm was not into the psychedelic punk art/music culture of the 70's and early 80's. I find some of that art interesting but I was never draw to it. Zeno Clash has made me reconsider that and maybe I need to take a closer look.

Zeno Clash was a game I first heard talked about when it came out back in 2008, getting a lot of press for just being real weird in a way games had taken a break from for a while. Not since the early 2000's with games like MDK and Giant Citizen Kabuto had the flat out strangeness of a game like this been seen. The combination of FPS, fighting game and a psychedelic punk fantasy world came almost out of nowhere.
\

In Zeno Clash you take on the role of Ghat, a skinny but determined protagonist (maybe?), and work your way through a crazy story. I often had zero idea what was going on in anything but the most basic sense but that was okay. The world is intriguing all on its own and the bits of story that drip out were more than enough to keep me pushing forwards to see what was next. I was consistently thinking "what can Zeno Clash show me next???"

The game is controlled just like a first person shooter, and even has a number of guns, from piranha shaped pistols to the most bizarre crossbowy-thing I've even seen in a game. The guns are strong but need to be reloaded often (again with some of the most unique reload animations in a game) and if they aren't available or convenient you fall back to fighting with your fists. And this isn't just a basic "punch guys when you are out of ammo" FPS style melee combat, no sir, it has the full range of punches, kicks, holds, stuns and throws. All this is taught to you via these fever dream sequences at the start of the game. Each fight takes place in more or less a cordoned off area and begins much like a standard fighting game where Ghat (and any companions that are with him at the time) are pitched VS the enemies in a splash screen, and at the end of the fight the story moves on.

Zeno Clash is a treat for the eyes with a huge array of characters and landscapes, very few repeated over the course of the game. Unlike a lot of FPS games there is not push for length here, no level or area out stays its welcome - sometimes I actually felt a little rushed, wanting the game to show me more of the place I was in. And it should be mentioned that this game has aged very well graphically and because of the unique art style avoided the problem of looking dated on a more modern PC.

Zeno Clash is a short(ish) game that banks on oddity, strangeness, mystery and a unique mix of game mechanics - pulling it off wonderfully. If you are comfortable with the combat concepts (it has difficulty settings) and dig the style I recommend it for anyone looking to take a break from the abundant same-old-same-old games.