Into the Abyss I'll fall, the Eye of Horus. Into the eyes of the night, watching me go.

PowerSlave: Exhumed fucking rules. Always nice to try out a game with not a whole lot of expectations and end up finding something pretty special.

Just a good ol' retro First Person Shooter at first glance, but beyond the surface you'll find one of the most challenging and tightly designed metroidvania-style adventure games out there. I find it pretty awesome how this game came out a good two years before Turok 2 and it puts that game to shame in every way possible.

The story is basically non-existent, but it serves as a good excuse to bring out some really unique ancient egypt-themed visuals, alongside an excellent and memorable soundtrack.

It ALMOST got 5 stars out of me, but I have to admit that there are some annoyances in the level design that hold the game back slightly (the randomly exploding vases, for example) and the final boss fight is admittely underwhelming compared to the previous ones. But it honestly? I wouldn't be shocked if I end up raising the rating at some point in the future.

Night Dive are honestly heroes for remastering gems like this for the PC. Go check it out! It's pretty cheap on steam.

From a historical perspective, this is pretty cool. The integration of unlockable traversal mechanics into a more straightforward kind of 90s FPS level design is impressive, all the more so years before the concept of "metroidvania" would begin to crystallize as something that could be applied across genres. The level design itself is quite good as well, quietly communicating secrets and guiding the player to understanding when there's more of a level to explore and when you need to come back with more mechanics. The enemy design is a little shaky, which makes traversing through the world more of a pain than it could be, but it's not too bad.

This was also my first real 90s FPS—I've never sat down and played through Doom or Quake—and I think that era of the genre (or maybe just the genre entire) is not entirely my thing. I didn't finish this not because I was getting frustrated, but because managing the fights and my ammo/health balance was just exhausting. Still a good experience to have, though!

This game is an oldie but a goodie.

It was a pretty good DOOM clone with really interesting pacing of levels and secrets. It's not going to blow your mind, but it will impress you with the thought put into the design of the levels.

It's not that long of an FPS, even for it's time. It is however really cool and still worth the try if you like boomshoot.

a very amazing obscure boomer shooter FPS game that was made for PSX/Sega Saturn/DOS back in 96' remastered by the mad lads & gods at NightDive Studios, this game is an Metroidvania FPS that's like DOOM but set in Egypt (aka the early version of Legendary: the box 2008 game but better), the graphics are very good, even my Macbook Air runs this game so perfectly, it was difficult from the beginning to finish this game and then i finally get to finish it, i'm glad NightDive Studios remasters such obscure FPS games as Boomer shooters to introduce a new generation of gamers to play games like, i never heard, remembered nor played the classic game on Sega Saturn, DOS, nor PS1 before, i bought this game just to play some good boomer shooters like this.

Thank you, NightDive!

Gotta say I think this is the oldest game I've ever beaten but that's kinda of cheating since this is a remaster\light remake.

Getting to the actual game I was quite surprised how good it felt. I'm pretty sure that's the remastering helping with controls but it felt great despite being an early FPS. Only part that felt a little iffy was the movement ,it felt slippery, but I felt like you can get use to it.

The story is whatever, this isn't the type of game you play for the story but what's there is interesting and I found the Egyptian inspired unique. I will say near the end some stuff gets revealed that's really cool to see.

What I found most surprising was how "modern" the gameplay felt. For me I never really played to completion a lot of old FPS games because for me I feel like you get the complete gist of the game within the first hour or so. In most older game you get most of the weapons and abilities right at the start so it never feels like you get to see really new stuff most of the game. But Powerslave really paces everything out, every couple of levels it feels like you get a new weapon or abilities right up until the end. The game also has metriodviania elements where you sometimes have to back to older levels to progress the game by find alternative exits with the weapons\abilities you unlocked. And sometimes you can go to older levels for extras, like health upgrades or even items to get an alt ending. For me by the end with all the abilities and weapons you have it feels like a pretty different game which is a crazy thing to see for an early FPS.

Overall that's what surprised me the most was how engaging the game felt. That there was always a new gameplay element every couple of levels. Sure some of the weapons or abilities could be stinkers but the fact that it was there was still cool to me.

Wow, I really enjoyed this game! It has a light Metroid flourish
with the abilities you unlock giving you access to new routes in previously beaten stages that unlock new levels. The power progression is sick, by the end of this game you will fly like an eagle and dive like a dolphin.

I rarely felt lost in a level or about where to go next and enjoyed the enemy types. It's wild that this is not mentioned in the same breath as other build engine games. Admittedly, the original was locked to consoles with the pc release being a standard shooter, but this new version by night dive proves it's more than deserving of a playthrough.

I never experienced the original PS or Saturn versions, but Nightdive has been killing it with these remasters, so I felt comfortable giving this a shot. It's got some charming jank to it - your hitbox is considerably larger than other games from around this era, including other Build Engine games, e.g. Duke Nukem and Blood. That said, this was one of the earliest examples of a proper FPS / Metroidvania and it is a fun, if dated, example of it. While games like Strife included backtracking and progression across levels, Powerslave leans more into the true Metroidvania aspect of, "there is a ledge / gateway in plain sight, but you cannot access it yet because you lack the ability to (jump that high / pass those kinds of thresholds / touch that surface)," and so on.

Gameplay loop aside, the game feels fantastic. Tight controls, lovely visuals that were polished up while still maintaining their original charm (i.e. not smoothed out or giving off any sort of Vaseline-coated vibe). Kudos to Nightdive for making an old Build Engine game feel this good to play. While Ion Fury is an example of a recent game that does it well, other older examples like Blood and Nukem 3D, as much as I love them, can feel very rough around the edges. This really didn't feel that way at all, apart from some inherent jank in the original game itself from a development standpoint, like the aforementioned hitboxes.

From a price : playtime perspective, it's definitely on the shorter side. I did some extra (optional) collecting before I finished the main game, so realistically, blowing through this with no extra side collecting would probably take a casual player ~4.5 hours. Going for a full 100% / all achievements would likely add a significant amount to your total playtime, at least a few hours more if I had to guess.

tl;dr: If you're a fan of boomer shooters, and you don't mind some Metroidvania-like gameplay aspects thrown into the mix, this is a good pickup.

>Looking for a new Doom-like
>Ask in forums if PowerSlave is any good
>Users don't understand
>I pull out illustrated diagram explaining what good progression, enemy and level design is
>User laughs and says "it's a good game sir"
>Buy game
>Its a metroidvania

An ambitious combination of first person shooter and Metroid-like backtracking exploration. Only let down by it being such an early rendition of the idea. Its ideas are a bit half baked owing to it being a trailblazer rather than an iterator. I feel like someone revisiting this idea of a run and gun metroidvania could make something truly great today.

But, man, what's here is still pretty darn good. There's really nothing else like it. The Egyptian setting is still unique today, the sprite work still totally beautiful, the core metroidvania-lite design rarely touched on in the FPS genre.

If you play it, play it on normal. The original game didn't have any difficulty settings so the highest ones here were added in just for the port. The game isn't exactly designed around them and the developer doesn't recommend them for a first time player. Go ahead on normal. It's a little breezy, but that's OK. It's really fun to blast apart some mummies and whatnot.