The game takes place on the fictional world of Zenozoik, a land of bizarre creatures, both feral and civil. The world feels primal; homes and weapons are made of bone, stone, and animal parts, yet weapon technology such as grenades made from skull bones and guns made from animal parts exist. The intelligent creatures in the world are humanoid, though some have much more resemblance to animals than humans. Some of these humanoids seemingly possess limited intelligence, and instead focus on one purpose in his or her lives. These creatures are known throughout Zenozoik as Corwids of the Wilds. Corwids are generally feared by the more intelligent creatures due to their sometimes insane unpredictability, but many just follow their one line of thought, and are therefore harmless.
The world in general takes some getting used to, as it is so different and almost confusing in its alien environments. At points it feels as though you've jumped into a bizarre picture-book world. I feel that this amazing new world is ACE Team's first great victory in gaming, and a great work of art in itself.
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| Don't worry, not everyone is as ugly as this guy (though some are worse). |
The story in Zeno Clash follow Ghat, a human child of the seemingly hermaphroditic, self-reproducing creature Father-Mother in the city of Halstedom. When the game begins, Ghat is on the run from his brothers and sisters who are attempting to capture or kill him after he was seen killing Father-Mother. He is aided in his escape by the humanoid girl Daedra. The two fight their way out of the city and decide to journey as far away from the family as possible. As the two travel, bits of background begin to be presented to the player in the form of flashbacks as Ghat tells his story to Daedra. Through these flashbacks, we learn that Ghat had caught on to a secret kept by Father-Mother which left him so enraged that he murdered the creature that had raised him. These travels bring Ghat and Daedra into multiple dangerous lands which they must conquer. The two will face many new enemies as well as hired assassins sent by Ghat's family to hunt the duo down.
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| These guys need to learn how to better utilize their armor... |
The gameplay in Zeno Clash mainly focuses on first-person, hand-to-hand combat. Players are given a set of punches, blocks, and counters that can be mixed and matched until a style suitable to each gamer's playstyle is found. The game uses a lock-on feature which allows players to focus their attention on one enemy at a time as well. My combat style tended more toward staying unlocked on any one target, moving in for a couple hits, and then backing off, but other players may find the feature to allow for massive damage on one target at a time.
Weapons also play a part in the game's combat. Just as the world feels strange and primal, so do the weapons. Heavy melee weapons such as a stone club are spread around, as well as various guns. Each weapon is visually interesting, and it can take a while to figure out how to best to use each one.
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| That's going to hurt your knuckles! |
As Zeno Clash was ACE Team's first game, you might expect that there would be some bugs with the game, and there are. While the lock-on combat system may seem nice at first, it becomes extremely clunky once you're fighting more than one or two enemies at once. You can imagine being stuck, locked-on to one enemy while three more flank you and beat you from behind while you can't turn to face them. Add in that the way to disengage the lock-on is to sprint backwards, and you have the makings of a very annoying encounter.
I also ran into a couple glitches as I was playing the game. At one point, I had knocked a boss onto the ground only to have his animations freeze and I could only watch as he shuddered on the ground as though he were seizing. This would have been kind of nice, had the animation not frozen at a point where the boss was invulnerable. I ended up spending around 10 minutes attempting to use items in the environment to get the boss unstuck from the ground.
Another thing that bothered me about the game was that enemies' attacks will often look like they will miss you, but hit. By this I mean, imagine an enemy swings a stick at you. You see the stick miss you completely. You still somehow get hit by the stick. Pretty annoying huh? To top things off, your own attack range seems to be a little bit shorter than it would appear by your attack animations.
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| Ok, how did that hurt me and not you!? |
Zeno Clash: Ultimate Edition offers the story mode as well as two different challenge modes. One challenge mode is time trials, which basically challenge you to beat levels as fast as possible. The other challenge mode contains both tower and pit challenges. These challenges give players multiple levels of a tower or pit with different tiers of enemies on each one. Two players can attempt these challenges together, using either couch-co-op or Xbox LIVE. The game's story mode is short, lasting only 4 hours or so. The challenges add around 2 more hours to the game's playtime.
Overall, Zeno Clash: Ultimate Edition was worth the time spent playing it. The unique world and interesting creatures are the best things the game has going for it. The short playtime makes the game feel more like the introduction to a bigger game that is missing, however. The game's clunky control system and strange bugs can cause some grief as well. I would definitely recommend trying the game out if you see it on sale, but otherwise you might just want to pass on it.
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