Did you ever want to be transported to the late 90’s? Ever wanted to fight sentient turds and clown brains with a gun that fires shards of glass? Did you ever want to be the coolest guy ever in the universe fighting lame bad guys? If so, then you should play Slayers X: Terminal Aftermath: Vengeance of the Slayer, developed by Big Z Studios Inc. and published by No More Robots. In this high-octane blast-from-the-past, you play as Zane, the coolest guy ever and the last X Slayer, tasked with stopping the Psyko Syndikate from stealing the Hackblood and making monsters out of it. Utilizing a wide range of weaponry, Zane must bring the Psyko Syndikate down, but is his revenge-fuelled adventure one you want to go along for the ride with, or is it worth just staying home?
The first thing that grips the player in Slayers X is the aesthetic. The entire game is steeped in late-90’s gross-out humor and edgy grunge vibes, which one would think would turn a player away from this game. However, Slayers X does something truly incredible, which is to instead of dialing it back a notch, they crank it up to a hundred. The humor is over the top and full of gems such as Zane looking at his reflection going “I’m Awesome,” or the game’s constant obsession over turds. It isn’t vulgar, but childish, which helps sell the idea that this was some lost game made in the 90’s by a couple of school kids.
Zane himself is worthy of a lot of praise, as he fully encapsulates what made games like Duke Nukem or Postal 3 work, which is to make a main character who not only thinks he is the coolest guy in the universe, but also backs that up by having them kill all the bad guys. Slayers X does this and more by creating Zane, what I can only describe as “what a 12 year old would think being a cool adult would be.” Zane is a CEO, yet still lives with his mom. His secret base is behind his house in the sewer, with all the video games and movies in the world, as well as every instrument so he can have a cool rock band. It’s so over the top it goes from in-your-face obnoxious to hilariously absurd. It rocks and rocks hard.
As for the gameplay, Slayers X delivers wonderfully. The gameplay is very similar to a lot of the classic boomer-shooters in the market today. However, the game mixes it up by what weapons and ammo are available. For example, the only infinite-ammo weapon is the S-Blade, a powerful sword that charges up energy when killing certain enemies, and can unleash that stored energy in a powerful shockwave attack until they run out of energy. We then get to the twin pistols, held akimbo and being a good rapid-fire weapon to fall back on. The Glass Blasta is one of my personal favorites, firing glass “sharts” at enemies, and serving as this game’s Super Shotgun. However, the player needs to reload the gun by breaking windows and collecting the “sharts” that drop from them, increasing the intractability of this game by a significant degree. From crossbows that fire sludge to a chaingun that is also a chainsaw, Slayers X does a fantastic job of taking the retro-shooter staples and making them unique and fit into its wild and wacky world.
From sentient rat allies, to a plethora of secrets to discover, to just plain killing sentient toilets or scores of mass-assembled psyko soldiers, Slayers X is a fantastic entry into the retro-shooter genre and the gaming sphere as a whole. I would highly recommend people play this game, and I hope that this is a sign for the return of the FPS protagonist. Zane is a lot of things; a CEO, Rockstar, the final X Slayer, as well as a perfect example as to why Slayers X is a game you should play.
SCORE: 10/10
Slayers X is available for PC via Steam.
Related: Reviews by Matthew White
An avid gamer, Matthew is also an aspiring game developer. Because of this, Matthew knows not only what makes a game great, but also the hard work and artistry required to craft such a phenomenal experience.
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