PowerSlave Exhumed Review

Doom clones are a special breed. Smack bang in the middle of a brilliant nostalgia era, with fast paced-gameplay and ultra-memorable weapons and enemies – most kids would respect them like a footy team, each vying to convince their mates that their favourite was truly the best, but in reality we were all winners. We all remember those long nights smashing out levels in Blood, Hexen, Duke Nukem and …PowerSlave?

You might have paused on the last one – for a number of reasons. Firstly, the game had a few names depending on where you were from and what platform you might have been using – also being called Exhumed in Europe – but it also didn’t have the widespread success of, say, Duke Nukem. But it was a certified banger, and I am pleased to announce that this port-cum-remaster is every bit as banger-ish as it needs to be.

Are you a bad enough dude to help King Ramses

The Egyptian city of Karnak has been overrun by an evil alien force, and you are a badass commando sent to figure out what has caused the malarkey. Separated from your team, you encounter the spirit of King Ramses who tells you to find a bunch of magic macguffins and kick some serious ass.

With that you are free to go to town crushing a horde of bugs, Anubis-headed cultists and mummies, with cat-women and insect monsters sprinkled in to taste. Your tactical foray into combat is mostly avoiding projectiles and backpedalling – while ensuring you are not entirely overrun. Simple enough on paper, but in practice it is challenging even on a lower setting. I spent an hour and a half on the hardest difficulty getting a feel for it – and while I love PowerSlave, I am absolutely not ready for that kind of commitment.

Blasting scorpions with a machine gun isn’t overkill, these guys suck

In truth, the game isn’t ‘bullshit’ hard – it’s just the regular hard. Enemies are relentless, but predictable thanks to zero unique AI behaviours, so deaths are often attributed entirely to a personal fuck up on your part. That is, unless they are related to platforming – which is still your fault, but at least you can blame gravity.

Everything looks and sounds great, and it’s crazy to think this game was initially from 1996

The shining jewel of uniqueness in PowerSlave is how the developers of old (Lobotomy Software) put serious effort into making their map layouts robust and meaningful. The macguffins you unlock provide all manner of unique high jumping mechanics (very high jumping in fact, it’s basically flight), and these movement options blow the doors wide open on new routes and areas to explore. The game gets to flex a very sincere MetroidVania muscle with how it innovates route discovery and branching paths. Returning to an old map will very often provide a new exit, and an entirely new set of levels to explore, weapons to collect and further macguffins to procure, further allowing MORE exploration.

Fight flying snakes with fire

Although this jewel is not all polish and shine, the very same magic that has been put into the platforming can also be a dark and terrible beast. Checkpoints are offered sparingly, and the more difficult sections require a level of precision that is more punishing than rewarding. While I finished the game in a reasonable amount of time, I am critically aware of painful mistakes that saw me soaring into walls of lava, pools of acid and hordes of enemies. Steel yourself for the frustration and know full well, you’ll probably get it next time.

And while this title is a port, it still has had care and attention put into it to ensure it’s authentic and familiar. It’s a very unique and easy to appreciate level of remaster – where effort has been put into ensuring that this experience persists in a modern time, behaving like a window to the past. Nothing has compromised the gameplay (for better or worse) and realistically it is a snappy experience even to a modern player.

Rapid fire bling is the solution to many problems

And an experience you will have, adorned with a schmick library of animated sprites, stylish music and gunfire noises. Everything looks and sounds great, and it’s crazy to think this game was initially from 1996. Even the more creative weapons are head and shoulders above even concepts in games today – for real, anyone who dares tell me the Ring of Ra isn’t an absolutely bonkers weapon is getting a free polygraph to measure how much of a liar they are.

That is 20 pounds of ugly in a 10 pound bag

Final Thoughts

An excellent platform to re-experience the thrill of Egyptian gunplay, PowerSlave Exhumed is every bit the same kickass adventure you might remember. But for the newcomer, it’s also a fiendishly difficult little number in a gorgeous set of retro-mummy-wrappings.

Reviewed on PC // Review code supplied by publisher

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