Zeno Clash
Developer: ACE Team Software
Nomination: Excellence in Visual Art
Platform: Windows
Website
Description: A first-person brawler set in a grisly and punk fantasy world.

Adam’s Thoughts:
There’s a reason why you’ve never heard of a first person brawler. When you represent a 3d world on a 2d surface like a computer monitor, you have to fake real depth using the kind of tricks that let you infer depth with one eye. Imagine trying to punch someone without knowing how far to reach, and that’ll give you a good idea of the problem that Zeno Clash faces.

Bellyaching aside, Mirror’s Edge already demonstrated that some genres that never should have seen 3d can still work. So if anything Zeno Clash‘s developer deserves respect for tackling the thorny problem. The available movies make the action look smooth, if extremely complex. As an experimental foray into genre blurring, the gameplay will likely appeal more to the jaded hardcore than anyone else, but it’s good to see an indie developer serving that hungry demographic.

The gritty punk fantasy setting looks like it’ll be disturbing, if you’re in the market for that sort of thing. It fits the violent gameplay well and looks like it’ll produce some interesting characters.

Katie’s Thoughts:
Violent punk fantasy isn’t the most common setting in the world, and first-person brawlers aren’t the most common genre of games developed, either. Zeno Clash brings both of these rarities to the table, in what should be a refreshing and different game. The game’s website emphasizes the story-driven narrative, so in addition to first person combat, the creepy plot should be appeal to even jaded gamers. The trailers certainly hint at an interesting and different story.

The trailers also demonstrate how disorienting the problem of knockback can be in a first person brawler, and how much of an advantage the ability to keep someone at even one or two feet of range can be. Hopefully the knockback problem won’t interfere with the game’s playability, but we won’t know that until we can put our hands to it at the GDC. The game uses the Source engine, so there’s some sense that it should work.

The game is nominated for Excellence in Art, and the game looks very pretty–do make sure you watch the trailers in HD. The characters are highly detailed, and also have an almost alien or Cthulhu element to them. It fits very well together, and it will be a pleasure to see how all the elements come together in the full game.

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