Zeno Clash
xeno- prefix. from Ancient Greek ξένος (ksénos, “alien”) a. Having to do with foreigners, as in xenophilia, or more commonly, xenophobia. b. From a foreign place, as in xenolith.
clash noun. onomatopoeic a. A skirmish, a hostile encounter. b. Opposition, contradiction, such as between differing or contending interests, views, purposes etc.
In my imagination, the development of Xeno– sorry, Zeno Clash – started when folks at Ace Team got together, got high, and got onto the subject of ancient mythologies (Roman, Greek, Norse, etc.) and how weird they all were. I mean, if you want crazy characters and crazier stories, you need look no further than some of the gods and goddesses traipsing around back in the day. Athena, birthed fully formed out of the sweaty forehead of Zeus; Pan, the goat-god of wanton sex; Artemis, goddess of the hunt, who for some reason was depicted in various interpretations as being literally covered with breasts; Medusa, she of the stylish snake perm and stony gaze, being some kind of metaphor for psychosexual wackiness (I’m pretty sure we can blame Freud for that); Jeff, the God of Biscuits; and even some nutter who told people to eat some bread and drink some wine and pretend it was his flesh and his blood… I mean, ew, dude. I’m sure we have enough problems without adding cannibalism to it. So anyway, the developers were shooting the breeze about Gods and Golden Fleece and rivers of blood and whatever until one guy, as I imagine it, stood up and went, “Yeah… but like, what if… Dude! What if there were, like, aliens, right? And they were weird, like totally, heh, but then, like, THEY also had myths and shit! I mean… dude…”
– Real player with 92.2 hrs in game
Read More: Best Action Fighting Games.
Over the years I occasionally return to this game to replay it for a bit (or sometimes, in its entirety), on one hand because the gameplay is genuinely fun, and on the other, because the world design slaps hard.
Running on the Source Engine, it runs buttery smooth and doesn’t need any sort of config editing or patching to make it support high refresh rates and high resolutions.
Saying this, you might expect some big budget title with huge production quality, but the reality is that it’s still very much a small indie game. The voice acting ranges from charmingly hammed up to okay to “literally random person we sat into the studio”, because that’s essentially what they did. No seriously, check the voice credits, most of it is just the development team and everyone is doing double or triple-duty. The character with probably the most lines, the protagonist, thankfully is voiced by a professional voice over guy.
– Real player with 18.8 hrs in game
Lúcido
The red giant is trying to destroy the sun, you must stop him! Explore a surreal world in search for the masks of power in order to save the world from eternal darkness. Fight powerful enemies, interact with strange beings, contemplate existence.
Features:
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Surreal open world to explore
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Dreamlike movement skills: Flight, levitation and super speed
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Simple combat system: Fight enemies using your melee weapon or throw stuff at them. You can find different powers for your sword (extra damage, absorb life, shockwave, etc.) or different things to throw.
Read More: Best Action 3D Games.
Zeno Clash 2
I was worried from the first impressions that people on youtube had about this game. Having really enjoyed the first one, I was really excited with a sequel’s potential, and yet, the general opinion was that this was a far less enjoyable game than the first Zeno Clash. Regardless, since I had the game, I decided to try to right after finishing the first.
So, let’s say it has a pretty confusing and “not as exciting as I hoped for” beginning. Even having played the first one, this game throws you into the wolves right from the start in regards to its story, and that sort of continued through the rest of the game… That’s my biggest complain.
– Real player with 18.8 hrs in game
Read More: Best Action Fighting Games.
I’ve had this game (and the first one) sitting in my library for a while now, the way “bundle fillers” usually do… but I gotta say, these games were a nice little surprise.
Starting by the universe they present: Everything is weird as hell, but it feels original and interesting and if you’re like me, you’ll be hooked instantly and will want to know more. The first game serves as an introduction to the universe by way of a rather limited (in scope) and more personal story about the main character and his “family”… The second game serves as both a continuation of that story as well as a deeper exploration of the world they live in. And it’s all a breath of fresh air among the countless traditional fantasy/sci-fi plots that plague every game these days.
– Real player with 13.1 hrs in game
Celestial Hacker Girl Jessica
Very addicting gameplay. The puzzle difficultly ranges from easy to very hard especially later in the game. Some levels I could get through with no fail on my first try. Some tested my patience for awhile and those mostly deal with gravity mechanics of hitting something at just the precise angle. I LOVE the visuals. Simplistic but effective with vaporwave, and webcore overtones.
It’s like you’re in a Grimes album.
– Real player with 30.2 hrs in game
Did anyone else call the digital rainbow skeleton “Space Mom”, or is that just me?
10/10, kept me smiling for all ninety minutes.
A E S T H E T I C
O V E R
B U D G E T
– Real player with 4.2 hrs in game
Dante’s Hotel
Dante’s Hotel is a first-person psychological horror game.
Assume the role of Dante, a soul in search of redemption and experience every
battle and terrifying events up-close, through a first-person perspective.
Explore a mysterious ever-changing hotel in a reinterpretation of Dante Alighieri’s epic poem (The Divine Comedy), and enjoy a genuinely terrifying experience.
Experience survival horror like never before.
You’ll wander through dark corridors, explore every room and get lost in endless mazes. This twisted environment is full of lost and demonic souls.
Frail Faces
very fun just a bit unbalanced
– Real player with 30.7 hrs in game
Great roguelike game with a considerable amount of content for an early access. Play style revolves around obtaining masks each of which offers their own moveset and special abilities. Powerups that upgrade passives and items that give unique effects can also be found along the way. Game gets progressively intense and fast pace like most other action roguelike games with stronger enemies appearing/hoarding you.
Only downsides are level design and lack of sound effects/music. Visually levels look great but level design can be simplified into an open area with spots that I can walk in and spots that I can only temporarily walk around in. Cause of this levels hold little differences besides enemies, chests, alters. Later levels do have more gimmicks in terms of level design but it would be nice to see an improvement on this in general.
– Real player with 5.7 hrs in game
Hush Hush - Unlimited Survival Horror
Going into this year I didn’t expect the horror game genre to impress me as much as it has. It is notorious for producing a lot of poorly made and cheap thrill caliber cash grabs. The Steam catalog is literally full of them. Anyone who has had a Steam account for any reasonable length of time can rattle off several of them without even thinking about it. But to be honest I’ve enjoyed quite a few horror games this year. Many of the ones that I have reviewed have impressed me. For example, in the past couple of weeks I featured Downfall and a few days later followed that with Shadows Peak which I believe is the best horror game that I have played since last year’s Until Dawn on the PS4.
– Real player with 9.1 hrs in game
i think this game has potential
– Real player with 3.4 hrs in game
Killer is Dead - Nightmare Edition
Don’t mind the almost 150 hours I have logged in this game. I’m just a dumb completionist who usually wants to finish most things in the game, specially achievements.
That being said, I’m fairly confident that I’ve played this game enough to say for certain that I wouldn’t recommend it, with the exception of it being on a good sale. This game is simply not worth full price.
Before Killer is Dead I didn’t know much about Suda51’s work. I read about killer7 but never played it. I do own it on Steam though. It seems to be much better than KiD, just from what I saw on the store page. But anyway, KiD apparently has much of Suda’s pure style. And it is a lot of style indeed, but this game doesn’t care to go much beyond excessive style.
– Real player with 145.0 hrs in game
‘In this job you will come face to face with the darkness.[…] I’ve been enchanted by her beauty!’
Damon
‘We are executioners. Professional killers hired by the state and high ranked clients to do jobs that no one else should ever know about. Monsters, maniacs and creepy mutants – everything is real in this world and we try to keep it a secret. The ‚Dark Matter‘ curses everything it comes in contact with, transforming it piece by piece into the abominations called ‘Wires’. Do you know where this ‚Dark Matter‘ comes from? From the moon! The dark side of the moon to be more precise. It is ruled by a mysterious man and this person gathers the darkness to take over earth. Sounds like solving this problem is the perfect job for you Mondo, isn‘t it?‘
– Real player with 35.2 hrs in game
Anodyne
[Spoiler-Free Review]
Anodyne is an exploration game which borrows heavily from classic 2D Zelda titles (especially Link’s Awakening). The dialogue is introspective, the subject matter is mature (sometimes even disturbing). It’s also one of the strangest games I’ve ever played.
Exploration is at the core of the game. If Anodyne was a protest piece against hand-holding in video games it would be considered a masterpiece. You aren’t given a whole lot of instruction regarding where to go next. This feels liberating, for the most part, as you alone are free to decide your next course of action. It’s also intimidating and frustrating though, as getting lost/stuck at some point through your playthrough is pretty much a given. It’s not necessarily bad game design, it’s a product of having too open a world and too linear a path to success (i.e. to get past this next section, the player will have needed to speak with this person to get this item). There aren’t many indicators letting you know whether you fulfill the prerequirements for an area so there’s a lot of trial and error involved. Be patient or look up a guide.
– Real player with 20.2 hrs in game
note, this games not for everyone.
Pros: very simple, bewildering exploration into these surreal worlds. the characters themselves can act unpredictably, like walking by a bunch of normal npcs, but suddenly one looks over and runs after me to attack. the world, dungeons, and puzzles are all very very connected and have shortcuts if you ever wish to backtrak. its quite a unique experience and im glad i actually bought it.
Gamplay: the biggest draw of this gmae to me is the exploring, the dungeons, puzzles and brutal enemies wihtin are all very well doen and get hard in their own right with puzzles and mazes makign you have to think outside the box to see how the areas you are in are connected. but aside form all that the experience of thes eplaces as a whole was the most fun for me. if youre not exploring a dungeon, youre explring the otuside world or some area without enemies. but all areas have plenty of paths and variety in music and play to amke them feel unique, it really helps for not getting lost as well. the music and the off tone of the game and the text youll get from people really gives you this unsettling feel, you're made out to be a protagonist as you go off into this world and commit horrible acts, some good some not, but the game doesnt tell you if what youre doing is right or wrong. you end up pondering it yourself and makes it a much more rmemeberable expeirence imo than say "heres the bad ending, bad things happen" or such or even consequneces. yeah there are consequences for some certain actions but it comes off as geniune from the characters themselves.
– Real player with 15.8 hrs in game
EQI
Pros
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Simple gameplay. Rotate the environment around with left mouse and right mouse, jump from platform to platform, the gameplay is easy to get into while changing up enough to stay fun.
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Nice visuals. The strange, trippy and almost otherworldly look of the game gives it a unique style.
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Great soundtrack. The techno tracks on offer fit the game’s theme and provide some good background to the gameplay.
Cons
- Some puzzles are tedious. Some stages require crazy levels of precision to finish, which leads to some frustrating trial and error, this is at its worst in the last stage when you can’t die unless you go out of bounds, so you don’t get a quick restart and have to walk back to the start and do everything over to finish.
– Real player with 2.2 hrs in game
As advertised EQI is a “trippy first-person arcade game with spatial puzzles, and a synthwave soul”. I’d also say it has sort of an ambient game vibe similar to Journey. The best parts about this game are the vibrant, colorful visuals, and the unique platforming gimmick.
This gimmick of rotating platforms does take some time to get used to, and while I like the overall vibe of the game, certain rooms are extremely difficult and frustrating to figure out. Partially because the game doesn’t convey what you are doing right or wrong very well. It reminds me of games like Giga Wrecker in that way.
– Real player with 1.8 hrs in game