Slave Zero

An action game of the past century that has been a little forgotten but that allows to spend great moments in the control of a giant robot that must save the world. What is striking in slave zero is that we are essentially evolving in the heart of a gigantic futuristic megalopolis whose skyscrapers are being climbed and traversing the highways by jumping from one bridge to the other. Despite the graphic limitations of the time, we really feel a lively and lively city with its luminous signs, its parks, its trains and its incessant circulation. Even if the cars on the highways seem like ants to us, we can observe them trying to avoid us, have accidents or know a fatal outcome as a result of an explosion or because they have been accidentally walked on. One can even see the passengers fled running or lying in a pool of blood. On the Rails, there are really trains circulating and they can cause damage when they are launched at full speed. Otherwise the game gathers the usual ingredients of the right titles of the genre: 3 weapons available that gradually gain power (machine gun-----grenade launcher, laser/plasma and rocket launchers); varied enemies that each have their own characteristics; ammunition, life points and weapon upgrades to be recovered; some exploration possibilities to find collectible safe houses; very flat passages; a scenario that mainly serves as a red thread between different missions. You can feel the heaviness of the Mecha, partially compensated by a Jetpack that allows it to jump with more lightness and to perform faster lateral movements. Some really fun passages when you find yourself facing a large group of several different enemies and you have to manage at the same time the ammunition to use according to the target, aiming (fully manual) and avoid falling into the void by dodging the shots on a narrow aerial highway or jumping from roof to roof to avoid explosions. I cannot, however, obscure the few black dots that often go with such old games. I failed to play full screen on my laptop computer. It is not always obvious to distinguish clearly the debris (even if they end up disappearing shortly after the fight), the small vehicles and the collectables (but maybe it's because I was just not in full screen...). Our three weapons evolve automatically as soon as we find an improvement, no customization possible. I found the difficulty rather limited and I never ran out of ammunition (I think I played in "medium" then opt for "difficult") and it is true that there are phases where the linear and repetitive aspect is more pronounced. The French dubbing is uneven and the music becomes painful in the long run (cut or lower the volume sharply). I found myself several times definitely stuck in the décor or ejected out of it by passing through a wall. The game has shown itself to be very unstable on the last mission with Office returns during some passages (rushing straight into the heap to move on as a result is the only way I found to work around this problem). These little flaws are undoubtedly the modest price to pay for having the pleasure of playing today in a 1999 title that really WINS to be rediscovered.