Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Zeno Clash: Ultimate Edition| Review


Synopsis: Fans of Atlus’ previously exclusive to PC first person brawler can now play Zeno Clash: Ultimate Edition on their console through Xbox Live Arcade. Players take on the role of Ghat, who has just killed Father-Mother and is being persued by his brothers and sisters while being accompanied through the land of Zenozoik by his companion Deadra to reveal the reason of this sin. Are you still with me? It is confusing at first but if you give it time, it will shortly start making sense. New to the Ultimate Edition are a handful of features that will have those that have already played Zeno Clash on the PC, coming back for console seconds, such as online coop or local split-screen Pit and Tower Challenges, Rush mode for time trial runs of your favorite levels, and new weapons, moves, and Character Awareness. Here is my review of Mad Max beyond Bettlejuice Zeno Clash: Ultimate Edition.

Praise: Goodbye realistic gameplay and environments and hello bizarre and twisted trip. Zeno Clash has an incredible environment which looks like something out of Beetlejuice and has a cast of characters that look straight out of a Mad Max movie. From the twisted and deranged landscapes and creatures to the scripting and soundtrack, this game is a fun ride from start to finish. While there is plenty of content to keep players coming back for the Rush mode and coop challenges, you need to make sure that you have enough hard drive space as this bad boy takes up one and a half gigs of space. What really changes this title from others in the first person genre is the combat, sure you can use guns that are just as unique as the land of Zenozoik, but the majority of the game was with your fisticuffs. It took some time to get used to but was entertaining and didn’t feel overly repetitive, as the environment and characters kept my attention.

Gripes: Some other items that also took my mind of the first person brawling were the hit detection and weapon crosshairs throughout battles. You can kick enemies when they are down, but in order to do so you have to use the punch buttons while looking down but if you’re not looking down past an unforgiving angle you will still be throwing bows in the wind. Weapons don’t seem overly powerful which provides a good balance, but the crosshairs were five little dots that were hard to see, so most of the time it was more effective to fight hand to hand or with melee weapons. Lastly, the majority of time I tried to play coop in the prime time evening hours, I could not find people to join when I created matches, however it was easy to find matches to join, but still had times where no available matches were found.

Overall, this was a fun title and is just the right length, coming in at right around five hours to complete. There is a lot of content available for the fifteen dollar price tag, while still providing a decent amount of replay value. If you are getting this title for the online coop, then you may want to make sure your friends have it first so that you know you have people to play with. Atlus had done a great job with this title from the gameplay to the world of Zenozoik.

Mashbuttons.com gives Zeno Clash: Ultimate Edition a 8.5 out of 10.

Zeno Clash: Ultimate Edition is available now 1200 MS Points on Xbox Live Arcade.

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