Review: Zeno Clash

A saying; there is a fine line between genius and insanity. Zeno Clash walks this tightrope gracefully, so finely balanced between the madness of a nightmare world full of strange creatures, and the genius of a combat system never really meant to be implemented into the engine it uses. It is quite a triumph; a world that feels so twisted and illogical it makes almost perfect sense. Like a bad trip, Zeno Clash rushes through 4 hours of amazing game play in a bright world of monsters and madness.

The game starts off in a confused dazed; you’ve killed what appears to be a giant talking bird, a hellish looking creature with no similarities whatsoever to big bird. You then find yourself in a dream world talking to a giant wrestler like figure with a square block head; the tutorial introduction basically to the fighting moves that will save you from the rest of the games weird and wonderful creatures. It is here you learn about the key combat that exists in this world, melee fighting ala the likes of your favourite fighting game. This can be a bit daunting – first person perspective fighting never really feels right in any game that has tried to mimic such a concept. Thankfully picking up the moves are relatively easy, a case of left mouse button performing singular or combo based punches while right mouse button performing a heavier punch. Block, dodge, all done and away you go back into the scene of your brothers and sisters attacking you for killing the giant hell bird.

So your adventure begins into this world as you escape from your siblings and from the place. Along with you is a female companion who at times helps in the world, though really seems to be there as a pretty face and to allow the story to unfold as to why your character killed the bird in the first place. Your character tells the story of why, and of the insane creatures that he meets along the way. The game shows you its weird world of colourful hues of pink and green, tall trees and peculiar wildlife – a Tim Burton movie put into an LSD blender. Zeno Clash is remarkably polished and makes the Source engine, now 5 years old, look rejuvenated and new – you need only look at the screenshots to see this. Its nightmarish creatures are all peculiar; some with screams of pain that send a chill down my spine. A tribesman with a beaded blood eye red mask and what looks like a pretty bad rash around his crotch; a creature that wears a sort of metallic helmet with no eyes, keeping their appearance locked shut; another who has eyes that stare into the very pit of your soul. The designers of this game were Chilean, and they must have taken a lot of reference and ideas from frightening novels or pictures.

All these creatures seem to be out to get you, and your only defence is your fists. Attacks feel quite weighty with each punch, and if you perform enough combinations you’ll be able to throw your opponent back in a grab. First person perspective works reasonably well for the game, though there are times you can find yourself being punched from behind, and since your viewpoint is stuck to one direction this means having to turn. This can be particularly troublesome since you’re usually facing multiple opponents. Zeno Clash attempts to compensate for this problem by “fixing” your target when you press the e button, meaning that your perspective becomes fixed on that opponent and that when you move he/she/it will constantly be in the centre of view. This works quite well, but still suffers from multiple opponent problems – you need to press e repeatedly to change your perspective to compensate for any attacks. In the end Zeno Clash does itself no favours by having multiple opponents attack you, but it is perhaps understandable considering most opponents can be taken out quite quickly if you constantly attack them with a barrage of punches and kicks.

Combat later on also gives you some weapons – tools that look like they came out of the movie eXistenZ (now there’s an old movie for you!). These help in one boss battle, and generally help to stop the more annoying of wildlife creatures that exist in the game. Personally I thought it was a bit of a distraction; an unnecessary addition to the game to stop the player becoming bored by repetition. The boss battle though with the rifle was particularly fun – dynamite squirrels and everything…

As the game reaches the peak of the mountain so it must come down, and sadly the last sections of the game don’t feel nearly as good as first sections. Things start to get repetitive in the fighting scenario, particularly in the last level. The twist and ending of the game is sadly an anti-climax, perhaps the final twist of an insane world – the last laugh if you will. In four hours though the game presents a marvel of design and graphics, of an idea cooked up in the wildest recesses of the mind, and I am therefore quite thankful that Zeno Clash is so short. Any longer and it would have become repetitive and sluggish; a chore of fighting a battle and repeat.

Zeno Clash though successfully fulfils its niche without overdoing it. It’s horrifying, quirky and in the end, a bundle of fun.

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