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Slave Zero

Score: 90%
ESRB: Teen
Publisher: Infogrames
Developer: Accolade
Media: CD/1
Players: 1
Genre: Action/ Platformer (3D)

Graphics & Sound:

Slave Zero is graphically lush. The mega-city that the game takes place in is amazing in its detail, from cars zooming around on the road to little people walking around in various locations. There are buildings that exist for the sake of being buildings, and signs that serve no purpose than to make a more complete world. Some buildings stretch miles into the sky, and others are small enough to smash with your fist or missiles. There is something about the sense of scale given by piloting a 60-foot biomechanical device that lends itself really well to a video game environment. The character models are lush and detailed as well.

The music is great, consisting of the requisite pumping techno needed in today’s gaming world, but nonetheless some of the better pumping techno I’ve heard in a while. The sound effects are satisfyingly over the top, with huge booms and explosions and zap sounds from the plasma cannons. Mmm. Plasma.


Gameplay:

Slave Zero plays like Crash Bandicoot on acid. Well, mostly. You are the pilot of a biomechanical weapon, stolen from the enemy, and you’re the resistance’s only hope. Blah, blah. What the game boils down to is kicking ass, and lots of it, and Slave Zero has ass-kicking in droves. The levels are all pretty linear, with occasional wrong terms, but nothing major. And in that sense, it’s the most like the Crash Bandicoot series of games for the PSX. After that, however, comparisons cease to be realistic. Crash has... a spin attack. Slave Zero has megaton missiles. Yeah, baby.

Piloting Slave Zero, you’ll find yourself in a variety of environments (although all contained in the mega-city), such as the sewer system where you must guide a convoy to safety or the surface where you must destroy a gigantic battleship. The lush environments are eminently destroyable, with most small structures going down in flames after a missile hit or a few rounds of your machine gun. You’ll run around and blow up lots of enemy sentinels, basically weak-ass versions of Slave Zero. Each has its own method of destruction, and each has a best way to destroy, from machine guns to strafing while firing missiles. My least, and therefore, most favorite are the evil spider-droids, which come out in droves in the convoy levels. They still give me the shivers.

There’s a plot, too, and it develops as the game goes on, actually giving some sense of continuity to the game. And you almost always start a given level where you ended the last one, making the game feel like a solid whole. Slave Zero’s execution in this manner is spot-on.


Difficulty:

Slave Zero, for the most part, is almost trivially easy, and that’s a problem that keeps it from being perfect. Later in the game, you encounter some bosses that will take you two or three go-rounds before you get through them, but I whipped through the first five levels without ever going below 80 health. It’s a great joyride, though.

Game Mechanics:

The mechanics of this game are spot on, although I sometimes found the weapon system a bit confusing. You can have multiple guns at the same time, and can switch between them, but you can also pick up girders and such and smash people over the head with them. Fun, fun, fun. A mouse-and-keyboard combination (ala any FPS on the market) gives you your best setup, and it’s the default. I found myself going to the classic WASD configuration for moving and strafing instantly, and it fits the game perfectly.

Slave Zero is a great game, marred only by its sometimes laughable difficulty level. If you’re into this kind of thing -- and who isn’t into wholesale slaughter of innocent, err, I mean, sentinels? -- you should pick it up. You won’t regret it for a minute.


-Sunfall to-Ennien, GameVortex Communications
AKA Phil Bordelon

Minimum System Requirements:



P233, 32MB RAM, Win95/98, 3D Accelerator, 4X CD-ROM, 16 bit sound card, Mouse or Joystick, 120MB HD Space
 

Test System:



AMD K6II 400, 128mb ram, 44X CD, TNT2 graphics accelerator

Windows Septerra Core: Legacy of the Creator Windows Wheel of Time

 
Game Vortex :: PSIllustrated