We at Fandompulse get it. Times are tight. A dollar doesn’t buy as much as it did five minutes ago. And when you do splurge on AAA video games like Red Fall, Gollum, or Starfield you end up with a buggy, unfinished, unplayable mess with 45GB day-one patch. You just want something simple, fun, and inexpensive at only $5 on Steam. Have I got a cheap thrill for you. Zortch Maxinum: Against the Alien Brainsuckers!
Zortch is the kind of retro-90s FPS that I have serious trouble resisting and generally don’t. Yes, I’ve been repeatedly burned by shovelware, but this ain’t that.
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I’m a little late to the Zortch party myself. I heard plenty of good things about this Boomer Shooter but I didn’t act on it because I didn’t want to. That is nowhere near the worst mistake of my life but it was definitely a mistake.
This video game is honestly good.
Zortch is by a company or person named Mutant Leg. When I first looked at it I figured it was going to be another game built on the Unity engine with stock assets but probably really well-designed levels, (hence the hype).
Nope, absolutely not. No current version of Unity would list as the system requirements:
Minimum: Win XP, 32-bit 1GB RAM, 1.5 Ghz CPU, Steam Platform
Recommended: Anything better
Zortch will run on a single-core CPU.
As far as I can tell Mutant Leg wrote his own custom game engine.
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This video game has a consistent and unique-ish art style, runs as smooth as butter on a 90-degree day, and even has a decent sound design. More importantly, Zortch has genuine character.
A game like this needs to be measured against its peers, in this case. Well, there aren’t any, not for five bucks. I would say that it was better than BoltGun but not as good as Dusk, but this really does feel like an apples-and-oranges comparison because those are in the $30 bracket. This thing leaves Chop Goblins in the dust, and that game costs a dollar more.
The levels are indeed well designed and there are twenty of them, five of them are boss levels which is two more bosses than you should have for five bucks. You end the levels by hitting a Duke button, and I loved that. There are plenty of late 90s, and early 2000s game physics. Big hint if you see a basketball hoop it is always worth your time in this kind of game to hunt around for a basketball. Take the dunk and enjoy your secret.
There are plenty of secrets in this game, and they are either weapons or some kind of powerup—health, armor, or being invisible for a while.
You do have a disembodied friend helping you out. That’s always nice.
Is there a plot? Enough of a one.
Zortch Maxinum is a career slacker who falls for an alien tourist trap scheme. It’s a cheap trip to a five-star resort, but of course, the resort is actually a restaurant, and Zortch’s brains are supposed to be the main course.
There are horror elements, but there is plenty of humor too. When you enter an open arena you will see gigantic horseshoe-style magnets in the distance, doubtless to aid in the capture of sapient lunch. Which is an awesome callout to the Space Quest games. You also get to shoot up the restaurant because you have to in games like this. Spider-mine robots will try to kamikaze you, but you can distract them by throwing a soccer ball and they chase it like a puppy. It’s the little things like that, that make a game special.
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There are about 30 different enemies that were clearly inspired by Wolfenstein 3d, Doom, and Quake. There is one infuriating enemy creature that keeps multiplying when you kill it. Hint: Use the flame thrower, It won’t help but it’s the most fun. That said it’s not easy, the game keeps up the pressure on you right to the end. Sure the low-level enemies become easy but there are so many of them they will deplete your ammo when you most need it.
You do need to look for the secrets if you’re going to get to the end.
It isn’t a huge game, it only took me 4 hours to beat it but it is a fun one.
Like I said, it’s five dollars on Steam. Go buy it.
What do you think of the new Zortch Maxinum: Against the Alien Brainsuckers video game on Steam? Leave a comment and let us know.
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