Nightdive Studios has become one of my favorite developers. It seems like everything they put their effort into turns out great. Their most recent release is PowerSlave Exhumed, which takes the mid-90s FPS game and modernizes it beautifully. Better still is that Nightdive took the best of both the original Sega Saturn release and the Sony PSX release and combined them (and both of these versions were inherently superior to the MS-DOS version already, see Wikipedia for details). So what you end up with is the absolute best version of an excellent game that was ahead of its time and is a joy to play still today.
PowerSlave was the name of the game in the States, but Exhumed was the name given to the European release, fun fact. Another fact is that PowerSlave was originally developed by Lobotomy Software, who were also responsible for the Duke Nukem 3D and Quake ports to the Sega Saturn, utilizing their SlaveDriver engine rather than the BUILD and Quake engines, respectively. Anyhow, it’s pretty amazing playing through PowerSlave today, admiring some of its unique traits relative to the other, more popular games of the time. Speaking specifically of PowerSlave Exhumed now (rather than trying to juggle the differences of the original releases), there were several things that I thought were really neat that you just didn’t see in other games at the time. I’ll touch on some of those shortly, but first, let’s talk about story and introduction.
I don’t know what his name is, but for about every 80s and 90s action movie trailer there was this classic, often-imitated voice that described the plot and peril of whatever movie it was. You’d know the voice if you heard it; and that very same voice opens up PowerSlave by giving us a rundown of the events so far. There is an ancient Egyptian city known as Karnak that was once the model for prosperous civilization. Now, in modern times, a mysterious yet very powerful force has taken over the city, and their power is spreading. Nations have sent in special forces to stop the uprising, but to no avail. Your generic and voiceless character is sent in, but his helicopter is shot down en route to Karnak. Armed with only a machete to start with, you must fight back the forces of evil and find a way to get out of Karnak. With well over a dozen levels and a variety of enemies and bosses, and about eight weapons plus power-ups and permanent special abilities, PowerSlave is packed with exciting FPS content and includes more than one ending, too.
PowerSlave features an interesting mechanic for health and ammo in that each of these is represented by a horizontal meter as opposed to a number. Furthermore, ammo pickups are generic, meaning that the floating orb that you find for ammo can actually be applied to any weapon that you have in your arsenal, but, you have to have that weapon selected before you pickup the ammo. Health orbs, which look similar, come in different sizes, and it’s possible to actually permanently-level up your health meter throughout the game, too, which becomes very helpful. All orbs, whether they are for health, ammo, or power-up (like rapid fire or invisibility), are found by destroying the various barrels and vases and other destructibles in the game, as well as by random drops from enemies.
Speaking of power-ups, there are a few artifacts in the game that you find that give your character permanent, and necessary, abilities. The first of these is a specific pair of sandals, the Sandals of Ikumptet, that lets you jump much higher and farther. The Mask of Sobek is the second item, and it lets your breath underwater for a long period of time, and the Shawl of Isis lets you float down gently from a fall or jump. As you play through the levels, you notice areas that you cannot reach for one reason or another, and it’s important to keep a mental note of these because eventually you will be able to get to those areas for secrets or out of necessity to advance the story. This Metroid-esque design was well ahead of its time for a FPS, and its neat going back to levels to explore new areas, not to mention use any new weapons you have that you didn’t have on your previous run.
In between levels, players speak with the spirit of King Ramses, who is also eager to see this evil threat upon Karnak removed. He gives you general guidance on where to go, typically by saying things like “go south of Karnak, and find a special weapon” (which turned out to be a really sweet flamethrower!). Ramses’ tomb acts as the jumping off point for players to then be able to fast travel to any previously unlocked level. Revisiting levels does respawn the enemies, but there is a bit of randomness to this from one load to the next as the contents of the many breakable objects in the game vary each time. In other words, sometimes a breakable might have ammo in it, the next time it might have an Omen Wasp, or other smaller enemy.
Playing through PowerSlave proves to be a lot of fun because of the creativity that the developers had with the weapons, enemies, environmental traps, and abilities. Level design is not particularly awesome, but it’s very serviceable. You can pull-up an overlay map by pressing Triangle, but you probably won’t need it. A few times I got turned around and a bit confused, but typically levels have you going from area to area, finding door keys and flipping switches to open up new pathways that you can often see before you can access. Being that you should be paying close attention for breakable walls and hidden paths anyway, it’s not too hard to stay on track and smoothly find your way through the level design, even if many of them do feel kind of maze-like. Of note, you cannot save your game when you want, but there checkpoints scattered through the levels that are a big help. Their placement is typically very fair and reasonable and I appreciate that checkpoints are often near dangerous platforming areas where one slip means starting over.
PowerSlave controls smoothly and supports motion control for looking around (which I disabled right away) as well as vibrations. A variety of adjustable options are there for you in the menu, most related to the graphics. Being KEX engine-powered, you have various SMAA anti-aliasing, anisotropic texture filtering options, CRT emulation, and a bunch more, not to mention support for 4K. There are a lot of optional knobs to turn there, but I was quite pleased with the defaults. I’ll also mention that I liked how bright the game was — I have vague memories of playing this on Saturn twenty years ago and playing it now on PS4, the latter seems so much brighter and with more ‘pop’ than ever, which was nice. The soundscape is great, and I would give a special nod to the soundtrack. Many of those 90s FPS games had outstanding soundtracks — take Heretic: Shadow of the Serpent Riders, Quake II, Duke, Doom, and others, for example — and PowerSlave does as well. The tracks in PowerSlave have a really nice Egyptian-vibe to them, reminding me of some of HeXen II, actually. Nicely done.
Of course, there is now Trophy support as well, including some fun ones like a Silver for “I totally meant to do that,” whereby you kill an enemy without using any weapons (like if they touch a lava pit). Trophies are also included for tougher achievements like obtaining all eight parts of the transmitter device, which is needed for the best ending of the game.
In sum, it’s clear to see that Nightdive Studios poured their hearts into this effort and the result is another outstanding product. The original game by Lobotomy and Playmates was a real gem that deserved a lot more recognition than it ever got. Thankfully, with the power of the KEX engine and the passionate crew at Nightdive, PowerSlave gets its time in the spotlight that it well deserves, and priced at just $20, too. PowerSlave Exhumed is well worth adding to your library.
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