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 Beat 'em up Action 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
One Finger Death Punch
I would not have discovered this game if I hadn’t watched jacksepticeye play it on Youtube, and as soon as I saw gameplay of it, and saw that it was only $5, I knew I had to get it, and 90 hours of playtime later, I can safely say that it’s perhaps the best five dollars I’ve ever spent.
One of my favorite types of games are games that are simple to learn, difficult to master, and rank you on how well you did. One Finger Death Punch, Flappy Bird, Spin Copters, Electronic Super Joy, all of them very simple (and cheap) games that I’ve put more hours in than I’ve put into any other type of game. But like every game, even one as good as I think One Finger Death Punch is, there were some hiccups.
– Real player with 113.1 hrs in game
Read More: Best Beat 'em up Action Games.
AT A GLANCE
(Full review follows below)
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Game Name: One Finger Death Punch
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Original Release: 2014
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Genre Tags: Innovative; Avant-Garde; Fast-Paced; Action; Simplistic; Casual
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My Overall Grade: A
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Estimated Playtime (Campaign): 10-40 hours
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Multiplayer Aspect: None
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Recommended To: Established fans of the genre; Those intrigued by the genre; Novelty seekers; Avant-garde enthusiasts; Casual gamers
REVIEW
– Real player with 27.3 hrs in game
Batman™: Arkham Knight
MAN HALF THE GAME, I SPENT INSIDE BATMOBILE!!
Arguably the best game in Arkham series. There were obvious improvements in almost every department, be it gameplay, graphics or stealth compared to the previous Arkham titles. The best way to describe this game is that it is a mixture of both City and Origins. Story is decent, Combat system was definitely improved. They added the fear takedowns but I personally liked the double takedowns which were removed in the Knight.
The most annoying part was blowing tanks literally half of the time. But they did introduce Batmobile for the first time in Arkham series so the experience wasn’t too bad. Its definitely overused though.
– Real player with 140.1 hrs in game
Read More: Best Beat 'em up Action Games.
Plus:
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Decent storyline / plot, nothing too cliche
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Combat system - hit, dodge, counter, parry, chain combos, just like your DS / Sekiros
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Different kills ( takedowns ) / variety of gadgets that can be used. If you want to compare to other games, the tools / gadgets available is pretty decent, perfectly balanced, nothing too OP
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Playing on hard difficulty, AIs are not dumb, they are well coded, however AI is still suffering from minor cases of ‘lack of peripheral vision’
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Minimal to none grinding involved
– Real player with 96.3 hrs in game
Shenmue I & II
[SHENMUE I]
Shenmue is a strange, gently plodding beast of a game that we’ll never see the likes of again. Even when Shenmue 3 comes out, it will likely focus on different things, different aspects of gameplay. Shenmue is currently gaming’s one and only kung-fu small town life simulator, and that’s commendable.
This makes the fourth time in my life I’ve finished Shenmue 1 and every time I’ve played it I’ve seen different scenes, talked to people and discovered what to do next in different ways. I’ve gotten different toys out of the capsule machines and won different prizes in the lucky-dip draws in the stores. The plot of Shenmue is the same every time, the way you work through that plot is different and organic.
– Real player with 89.2 hrs in game
Shenmue. It was a great game that preceded many other open-world titles. It is still the game with that much immersion from the open-world as you can get in 2021, if we’re not talking about visual details. Every person there, every single NPC has a unique appearance, behavior pattern, and biography defining his/her actions. Additionally, every person involved in fights has his own set of moves. How’s that for starters? For a game released in 2001? Even more, Shenmue is still the great tale of adventures and martial arts.
– Real player with 73.3 hrs in game