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Hand-to-hand combat in a bizarre fantasy world.

Zeno Clash looks like a first-person shooter, but most of the time you don’t have a gun. Everything around you seems so weird; deranged fey-like humanoids, a twisted landscape that’s both off-putting in it’s oddity but draws you closer regardless, and an overwhelming sense of mystery and perplexity that surrounds the experience leaving you feeling both wondrous and a little frightened.

Protagonist Ghat and companion Deadra.

The game is fundamentally designed to deviate from the conventions of a traditional first-person shooter, so much to the point that you can’t technically call it that. The game’s primary combat focus is hand-to-hand, and while guns do exist in the world of Zeno Clash, they are primitive and act merely as short-term accents to your conflict resolution. The decision to eschew traditional point-and-shoot gameplay is eased by the fact that the fisticuffs experience is rather easy to use thanks to well thought-out decisions by the Chilean developer, Ace Team.

Conflicts in Zeno Clash arise in closed-off arena-like segments that not only limit the effectiveness of the ranged weapons due to limited range, but also force the enemies unto the player with little room for escape. This builds a frenzied feral-like experience to the fighting. The enemies are in your face, and despite some rather clumsy ragdoll physics at times, the combat feels brutal and personal.

What draws you in to Zeno Clash isn’t the difference in combat, but the overall look and feel of the world itself. Edmundo Bordeu’s art direction pulls from a variety of sources but only vaguely, lending the game to feel both very familiar in it’s overall presence, but very fresh at the same time. The world in which Ace Team describes as Fantasy-Punk is filled with strange architecture, landscapes, flora and fauna. The character animations by Gabriel Garcia really enhance the sensation of being comfortably creeped-out, especially with the lead antagonist Father-Mother who’s slow but directed gestures make you instantly aware somethings not right.

The persistantly creepy Father-Mother.

The game’s storyline is centered around a traditional fairy-tale elements, and in an effort to avoid spoiling the final revelation we won’t go in to the specifics. The story explores themes of insanity and purpose early in the game, but it largely fails to convey a message properly when compared to the overwhelming traditional conventions of the hero’s journey and the nature of deception. While it does not break much new ground in this sense, it is enough to satisfy and does leave some fat to chew after the game is done.

It’s a shame then that the story experience is rather harshly interrupted by some of the poor voice acting. Don’t mistake, not all of the voice acting is bad.  The voicework for  Father-Mother and Golem is really high-quality work which is surprising considering it was done in-house by Ace Team co-founder Edumundo Bordeau. It’s unfortunate then that Deadra, your female companion for a large majority of the game, sucks you right out of the game world every time her lips move. That performance, along with the halfhearted reading of made-up curse words is unshakably distracting.

Ghat fighting one of his vengeful 'siblings'.

Beyond the core 6 to 8 hour single-player experience the game does offer a challenge mode that pits a single player against levels of combat scenarios. These situations include an ever increasing number of foes or odd circumstances, such as being required to use skull bombs to defeat enemies on-high. This mode is not deep and is rather disappointing when compared to the campaign experience. The challenge tower includes a leaderboard for comparing high-scores with your Steam friends, and this is as close as it gets to multiplayer.

It’s hard not to get pulled in to it’s expertly crafted world and while a rather short experience, it never feels stale or rehashed from other games. Zeno Clash is a marvel in this regard. The hand-to-hand combat takes some time to get used to, but is an enjoyable change of pace and the game is worth checking out even if only to see the unique art direction.

Zeno Clash released late last month on Steam for $19.99 (there’s also a free demo). Ace Team has offered us 4 codes for the game to be redeemed on Steam for our readers. In order to earn them we want you to post a comment below with either a story of a fist-fight you’ve been in, or a time when you had to perform an action you would usually have considered insane. Good luck, and have fun.