Zeno Clash Review

Platform: Xbox 360/PC
Publisher: ACE Team
Release Date: April 21, 2009

Story: Hit
Character Development: Miss
Graphics: Hit
Sound: Hit
Re-playability: Miss
Overall score: Hit

Games have become a number of things, but when they can be explained as odd, grotesque, or unexpected we (the consumer) tend to get butterflies. If anyone disagrees I have two words: Silent Hill.

Zeno Clash (Released in April of 09) does this, but in a less frightening way.
In Zeno Clash, the protagonist’s name is Ghat and he lives in a world called Zenozoik (there are no typos here). His Father-Mother (a creature that apparently servers both purposes) has exiled him from his home after he discovered a “flaw” in Father-Mother. A linear plot line of first person hand-to-hand combat ensues leading the player through the events that had taken place prior to Ghat's exile.
While the story is something that left me wanting more in the end, it did capture me. It was an interesting mix of a persistent world balanced by a severe linear plotline.

The story, as much as it pains me to say, was lacking, and if not for a single character named Golem who you meet once you are 3/4ths of the way through the game, this story would have been completely awful. This character, however, really brought it together and made the game able to be finished with my sanity still intact.
This game plays like a 3D version of a classic Mario game. Ghat runs through a series of combat challenges and ends each level with a boss fight. After a small cut scene you will enter a load screen and arrive into an entirely new environment.
The most shocking moment that tore me away from the game’s continuity was when the game loaded out of a lush green forest and into a desert with only a single line to provide where you might be going next: “Maybe we will fare better in the desert.”
The voice acting was not a complete fail as you would expect from an independent publisher. That was a relief to me. I hate listening to a character talk when they sound like there are in a recording studio looking at the clock on the wall. The only thing that could have made the voice acting better would have been giving the characters something interesting to say.
Throughout the game there was only one character that actually felt developed, and as I said before, you meet him 3/4ths of the way through the game. There was a girl named Daedra that travels alongside Ghat, whose name I couldn’t remember until I looked it up just a second ago (she was that important).

If anything motivated me to continue pressing “W”, it was the interesting art style, and the hope of something greater than what it ended up being. Graphically the game was captivating. I couldn’t wait to see the next landscape or the next enemy. Even though I would lose the story from time to time (not that there was much to keep track of, it was just so small that I lost it) the environmental detail was some of the coolest I had seen, and the art style was unique to say the least. Throughout the game I found myself saying “I wish I could go over there and explore that.” At first I said this as a mark against the game. Then it struck me that I was so interested in the world that I wanted to explore it. I think that ACE Team succeeded here in providing a taste of what one of their higher budget games could be.

Zeno Clash was originally slated to be a game that is more akin to Bethesda’s Oblivion. Since Zeno Clash has come out, it has been rumored that ACE Team still intends on making this open ended RPG world of Zenozoik. I believe that Zeno Clash is the ground floor of a potentially great video game franchise.

With Zeno Clash, you have an aspiring new gaming company that made a very interesting world, with a unique art style and a good sound track. The Game’s story is decent, but could use a little work. When you are done with this game you will most likely loan it to a friend and not care if they ever give it back (but you will be glad that they enjoyed the game too). I wouldn’t drop more than $30.00 on it since you can blow through the game in a single afternoon. I would check a GameStop in their used section for the Xbox 360 version, or for PC- well there are ways to find games at a "low" price.