Zeno Clash
Just like there are distinct experiences to be found in foreign movies, I believe that foreign games also offer something wonderfully different than what is going on in the American game scene at the time. We all know Japanese games with their love for abstraction and juxtaposing the cute with the chaotic.
Zeno Clash is a is a really unique budget game hailing from Chile which combines timing based brawling a la Punch Out with crazy Dave McKean inspired character designs and Half Life 2 flavored first person shooting. While a little linear and repetitive, everything else about this game is excellent.
First of all, I love the plot, it is deliciously strange but well paced, beginning when Ghat, the character you play as, flees from the scene where Father-Mother was murdered. You see Father-Mother is the leader of a large clan comprised of its children, of which Ghat is one.
As you evade bounty hunters, monsters, bandits and your enraged siblings, you tell the story of what led up to these events to Deadra, who accompanies you on your journey.
This quest takes you to many exotic locations, such as a forest where all inhabitants are crazy. Some are pretty harmless while others are extremely dangerous, for example one of these forest dwellers dreams of becoming invisible and to accomplish this he removes the eyes of all those he meets. The game is actually packed with strange and unusual foes like this, my favorite is a blind bounty hunter with a rifle. Obviously he cannot see the player, but he has trained squirrels to chase his foes and squeal when they get close. These squirrels have dynamite strapped to them, so when the blind marksman shoots them it usually damages the player. Because this is not the sort of game where you kill your opponents, you will encounter the same people several times on your journey.
The gunplay is rather good as well, full of rustic muskets and crossbows made out of bones and junk parts. It is easy to weave in and out of ranged combat and use your weapons for crowd control when you are facing more than one opponent.
When all else fails, toss a bomb and run as fast as you can. Unfortunately the game is somewhat short, but it offers a fun challenge mode in which you face off against a bunch of different combinations of enemies in five levels of difficulty. In the end I highly recommend picking up this budget title, both to get something different out of your Steam account, and to support a small gaming studio.
Who knows, if enough people pick this up we might see a sequel or, better yet, a multiplayer mode, because bashing somebody in the face with a blunt instrument is always more fun with friends.