At first, the only way to survive the zurks is to run for your life, sprinting into the screen while plotting paths between streams of the squeaky blobs and weaving at speed to avoid their grasps. All that remains are their former android servants, functioning free from direction, and hordes of nasty beasties called zurks, which look like baby headcrabs from Half-life and exist merely to chew through anything that moves.Īt various stages of your adventure, you'll have to pass through zurk-infested territory, usually marked by a coating of unsightly, stringy goo, as if a giant pizza had exploded. It seems that people built the underground city you've plummeted into because the planet surface had grown toxic, only to meet their ends regardless, long before the outside bloomed once again.

What follows for the rest of the game is a journey to reach the top again, revealing the fate and legacy of an extinct humanity on the way. I don't recall the last time I cared about a game protagonist's fate so much. From such innocent beginnings, it's a gut punch. Look up and you see a distant halo of light, from which mournful meows echo down. She's now stuck in much less idyllic surroundings-dusty, garbage-ridden ruins.

As it happens, though, the plot soon intervenes: a rusty pipe betrays our sure-footed avatar as she vaults a chasm, snapping under her weight to send her tumbling down then down some more into darkness.

Indeed, the prowl and pounce rhythm introduced in the opening minutes could have kept me entertained for some while on its own.

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