Graphics and Gameplay

Doing the bump

Walking through the demo level, buildings rise up all around you, making it seem almost as if you're indoors when you're actually not. Slave Zero is a third person game, and one thing the developers wanted to stress is the sense of scale. Indeed, the Ecstasy engine does a good job of conveying that scale, making your robot tower above humans and cars moving about underneath you. Another slick feature that makes Slave Zero stand out is its use of environment mapped bump mapping, currently only available in the Matrox G400 and G400 Max cards. Bump mapping makes a huge difference when it comes to drawing the textures on the surfaces of Slave Zero.

What an innocent looking alley

Aim up

Squish go the cars

Eye candy aside, this game's main pull was the ability to run amok downtown in the city of the future. Stomping on cars, beating down buildings, and just generally being a nuisance are all just a few keystrokes away. One of the most enjoyable aspects of Slave Zero is that the environments are very interactive. Destroy a building, and you can pick up a big pipe from the rubble, and wield it as a weapon! Civilian tanks attacking you? Not for long! Smash, squish! Slave Zero even enables you to pick up the tiny vehicles running underneath you and use them as weapons. Run out of rockets? No problem, just grab that bus rolling beside you and hurl it at the enemy!

Mmm, rocket pack

Wanton destruction of property

The rest of the gameplay we saw was pretty standard action fare. Run through the city, grab ammo, health, and new weapons. Enemies pop up in predetermined patters and attack you, and you have to beat them down with your boom stick(s) and your rockets, and whatever else you can pick up along the way. Enemies vary from robots similar to yourself down to tanks and commandos trying desperately to make a scratch in you as you stomp down on them. Progress far enough, and there will be a "boss area," in the case of the demo, you have to destroy the main computer grid that controls a train station.