Quake has never been my forte, but mechs, that's a language my anime contaminated brain fully understands. In Slave Zero you play the role of sixty feet tall, biomechanical exo-suit with a machine gun-think Godzilla with an itchy trigger finger. Well how do you know you're sixty feet tall: for one there's the massive environment you recklessly traipse through. The buildings tower around you, street lamps come up to your knees. Then there are the people. Yes, your fully negotiable, polygon world is filled with tiny people that scream in terror as you rampage past them, guns blazing. Then there's the traffic; the streets are filled with automobiles that will swerve to avoid you and even crash into each other just to get away from your hulking mech monster. Those aforementioned people, if they happen to be standing in the street, will get run over by terrified, fleeing motorist, leaving nothing but bodies surrounded by swelling pools of red. Good stuff, I tell you.

The story is generic. You're the last hope of an enslaved humanity, and the frontline weapon of a resistance, blah blah blah. Your mech is actually a stolen "Slave" unit from the very enemy you seek to destroy, and your basic mission is help steal more Slave units so a full fledged war revolutionary war can commence. Okay.

While the story is hack (ed's note: What?!?), the game is itself brings something old and new to gaming table. For one this isn't really a bona fide first-person shooter. The mechanics are strictly that, but you can play in either the default third person view (Tomb Raider style), or from the first person view (like Goldeneye). More on why I prefer the first person mode later.

The game utilizes the much maligned DC controller in an unconventional way. The analog stick is used to look around, which, believe me, is a good thing. Enemies will spring and shoot from all sides and the ability to spot them quickly is a must if you don't want to end up dead. The face buttons are used for moving forward, backward and strafing to the sides-another invaluable ability. The D pad is used for jumping, and stomping, which sends a shockwave that can be used in close quarters combat. It may sound confusing, but it's actually quite intuitive. After a few attempts, it becomes second nature. You have three primary weapons: a ballistic gun and energy weapon, both of which are controlled with the R trigger. Then you have a shoulder mounted rocket launcher, which is controlled by the L trigger. Three weapons is what you start with and is all you can carry, no caching an arsenal like Quake and Turok, so there's no cycling through ten guns just to get the one you want. It may seem limited, but each can be upgraded, unleashing more destructive mayhem on anything in your path. You can also pick up the innocent denizens as well as their cars. Ran out of ammo, start flinging ladies. Rocket launcher is empty, throw a bus.

Now this is where SZ differs from other titles in its genre. For one, there's no switch flipping, and no wandering in circles either. The levels are very straight forward, literally. Your goal in every mission oriented level is right ahead of you. No getting lost, no maps needed. In this respect that game is more like a 3D Contra. Walk and blast the hell out of everything that moves. There are alleys you can duck into and metal beams you take cover behind, but overall it's a linear playing experience. The level design prevents creeping up the enemy, but seeing as every step your mech takes shakes everything around you, that would be an impossibility anyway.

The graphics have to be reviewed in two ways, and here's why I prefer playing Slave Zero in first person mode. In first person mode Slave Zero is a sight to behold. Easily, it's the best looking first person shooter on any console. The lighting is amazing, the texture resolution is high quality, and there isn't a clipping glitch to be found. Enemy mechs in the distance continue to be coherent and not just pixel blobs. In terms of atmosphere SZ has more in common with the cyber-punk epic, Blade Runner, than Robotech. Your world is what happens if we don't start listening to environmentalist. It's very dark and bleak and over industrialized. Japanese neon signs are everywhere. Slave Zero is the first game to actually create a true world, not just levels, but a living, breathing place. Though I do wish you could rampage more. There are smaller buildings you can blow up, some of which hide power ups and debris you can pick up and throw, but the taller buildings take only minimal hit marks and blast scouring.

I will say that some of the later levels, the sewers especially, get really intense. You have to escort resistance boats through sewage canals, all while spider mechs with machine guns creep along the walls and drop from the ceiling. And the frame rate is good. The "Ecstasy Engine" can, in sparse areas with limited baddies, render things at a blissful 60 frames per second, but in the more complex areas things can dip to a paltry 25 frames per second. Now that's a big hiccup, but control is never too adversely affected, but only in first person mode I emphasis. In third person mode the game is a mess. I'm talking 10 frames per second or less. At best 30fps is possible and the game is fun. Your mech is smoothly animated and such, but god forbid more than two bad guys should appear and the slow down makes moving, shooting or anything a chore. Simply, the game becomes unplayable.

The audio is just average. There's some nice gun blast samples, and environment ambience, but you always expect more. Some of the bosses are MASSIVE, and after killing one you want a big ka-boom, or agonizing death rattle at least, but you get only get a couple of electrical pops and static effects. Occasionally, some of the samples aren't time aligned properly. None of this is too bad, and it's all very adequate. Hearing mechs send warnings and messages to each other adds tension as you suddenly become aware of back-up about to storm you from all sides. The messages sent from HQ to your slave are well acted. Brace yourselves, there's no music. Nothing. Not a peep. But I tend to play my FPS with the music turned off anyway. That's just my personal taste, but it's something to keep in mind. On a side note, the game is encoded in a Dolby Pro Logic compatible format. Your footsteps stay locked in the center channel, but rockets whoosh from the left to right speaker and echo in the rear. Explosions rock down to 45hz so a good subwoofer is definitely in order. Indeed, for the audiophile SZ yields some hidden niceties.

In closing, what can I say about Slave Zero? It's not Quake, but it's not Turok either. This is an action game, through and through, dedicated to visceral, adrenaline, heart-pumping thrills. It hearkens back to the glory days when blasting indiscriminately was cool, and depth wasn't a factor. Most times these days, your left in front of your monitor, thinking "wtf am I supposed to do now", or "where do I go from here." Not so with SZ. You just point and shoot. Mow down any sorry mother that has the balls to get in the path of your crosshairs. What a novel idea. What a kick ass game!

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