Again within the mid-90s the PC was the rightful residence of first-person shooters, however there was one notable console outing that eluded us. PowerSlave (or Exhumed in Europe) got here out for the Sega Saturn in 1996 and PlayStation in 1997. It was pure 90s shooter nonsense, sending you to the traditional Egyptian metropolis of Karnak to shoot hordes of aliens, scorpions, Anubis clones and tiger-headed ladies in bikinis.
What a time it was…
An MS-DOS port of Powerslave did truly come out in 1997, nevertheless it was bizarrely inferior to the console variations, taking out a lot of the sport’s intelligent non-linear design. Fortunately, we will depart all that previously now, as a result of Nightdive Studios has simply launched the last word model of the sport, PowerSlave Exhumed, on PC.
The sport makes use of Nightdive’s KEX engine, and merges the Ps and Saturn variations into one lovely cosmic-coptic nightmare. So which means it’s going to have the extra superior stage design from the PS1 model, however some unique Saturn powerups, in addition to the Saturn model’s skill to rocket-jump (or, technically, bomb-boost as you are utilizing Egyptian-themed bombs to do it). Naturally, gamepad help, widescreen resolutions and different graphical niceties like antialiasing and Vulkan help are all included.
The sport is fairly bonkers even by 90s requirements, with an arsenal starting from magic fireballs shot out of your arms to magic staffs, machine weapons and rocket launchers. But it surely’s greater than that, too, with some sensible Metroidvania-like design that permits you to backtrack via ranges utilizing an overworld map, and open-up beforehand unreachable areas utilizing gadgets you discover. For a 90s shooter, it was uniquely exploratory.
We reached out to Nightdive’s Larry Kuperman, who had this to say concerning the launch. “PowerSlave has been on our radar for fairly a while. Many followers requested it and it clearly met Nightdive’s standards as a misplaced traditional. Nevertheless, we would have liked the assistance and sources of our companion Throwback Leisure to untangle possession points. With out them, the sport would have remained misplaced.”
So here is to you, Throwback and Nightdive.
PowerSlave Exhumed is out now on Steam and GOG. When you’re very curious, you possibly can nonetheless seize the inferior MS-DOS model of the sport on Steam and GOG, however frankly, you should not.
