Game: Powerslave / Exhumed (Europe)
a.k.a. -
Power Slave or PS and EX
Powerslave is a 3D first person perspective
action/adventure game based in Ancient Egypt. This game uses an
early version of 3D Realms 3D game engine and the BUILD Engine,
which allows for many great special effects and a smooth feel to
the game. It uses many of the very same features, and a few new
ones too. The game was under development for approximately a
year under 3D Realms publishing as Ruins:
Return of the Gods, then under the PIE
publisher the game continued to be developed (end 96). The game is NOT
ported from consoles systems, the PC version came first then the
console games where made using a different engine. The
original name of the game while at PIE was going to be Exhumed,
but the team (Lobotomy) ended up with Powerslave for the US
market, and reserved Exhumed for Europe.
WELCOME TO THE NIGHTMARE OF RAMSES' TOMB
An
archeological expedition to unearth long-forgotten treasures
revealed a history more dark and depraved than anyone thought
possible... a lot more... An ancient evil force, not of this
time - or this world - has remained buried since the Egyptians
walked the Earth. But now it's Exhumed...
Destination: The Ancient Egyptian City Of Karnak. Alien Forces
Possessing Horrifying Powers Have Sealed Off The Once Thriving
Community From All Outside Contact.
As A Covert Operations Specialist, You Have Been Trained For
All Forms Of Contingencies. Nothing Can Prepare You. However,
For The Nightmare You Are About To Enter...
As an armed forces specialist, you have trained for all forms of
enemy contact. Nothing, however, can prepare you for the modern-day
nightmare you are about to enter. The ancient Egyptian city of
Karnak has been sealed off by enemy forces. No military action has
yet been successful in penetrating the perimeter. The enemy possess
firepower of unknown origin. There is a high probability of
ultra-human involvement. Your mission is to infiltrate Karnak,
discover the nature of the enemy forces, and respond with maximum
efficiency. Lethal force has been approved.
RAMSES WAS DEAD WHEN THEY ENTOMBED HIM. YOU MAY NOT BE SO LUCKY.
The darkness of ancient Egypt and evil alien power have reached
across time and space to take our world hostage. And in comparison
to what these mutants have planned for humanity, death is kind.
Airdropped into a landscape shrouded in terror, you must journey
through multiple, 3-D levels to defeat this scourge.
Your one salvation? The guiding Spirit of the Great King Ramses.
The rest of the time you're on your own. Unless of course, your
networked with up to 8 other players.
So, welcome to the valley of the shadow of death. And enjoy your
stay. It may last forever.
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Game:
- First person AND Third person viewpoints.
- 33 levels (21 single player) of nonstop game play through an
ancient Egyptian city and the tomb of the pharaoh
Ramses.
- Unique Stacked Sector Technology™ allows you to
move between multiple floors WITHIN a single level.
- 3D environment lets you look up, look down,
jump, squat and swim.
- Cross bridges, crawl through tunnels and swim
through underwater grottos.
- With just a Machete to start, search for 6 other
weapons including Hand Grenades, A Flame Thrower, An
M-60 Machine gun, and a magical cobra staff.
- Brilliantly made Dynamic Lighting creates
stunning visual effects.
- Fully IPX-compatible networkable for up to 4
players, possible 8 players. 11 levels for death
match only.
- Automap overlay. Use the TAB key to display the
un textured map, - and = to zoom in and out.
- SVGA, maximum resolution is 640x400, if you can
get it. Otherwise use the command line flag /h to
get 640x400. (SETUP.EXE/MENU.EXE doesn't seem to
correctly write to the SETUP.CFG file correctly, nor does the
game seem to read video ScreenHeight settings at
all from SETUP.CFG.)
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Sound:
- Miles Sound System, Stereo. Although the sounds
are 8 bit, the sound quality is outstanding.
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Art:
- Detailed and fully animated sprite characters
derived from Egyptian mythology and original alien
creations.
-
All of the enemies were built with clay and other
materials and then digitized.
-
Enemies, objects and weapon art animation is very
well done. If you enlarge the screen during play to
remove the status bar you can see and enjoy more of
the weapon animations.
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More Details:
- PS has some minor glitches, like no animation of
flying souls from the corpse of the boss, SET. So it
is recommended to play with Exhumed as it
is a more recent version of the game.
- F7 and F8 modifies the mouse horizontal sensitivity in game
(side to side movement only). The game uses Auto-Aim
rather than mouse look, therefore no crosshairs.
- F11
modifies the brightness/light from 1 to 5. Note this
is not gamma correction.
- There is no auto-run feature, you must
hold down SHIFT. (If you setup the "run" key as "capslock",
you can actually have auto-running. No need to hold
that shift key all the time anymore!)
- Strafing is a bit slow to
be effective. (If you use that capslock auto-running;
you can strafe super fast! The superfast strafing
doesn't work with the 'strafe left' and 'strafe
right' keys, however it works if you use 'strafekey
+ left' or 'strafekey + right' (again only if you
use the auto-running capslock). So, by setting the A
and D keys to 'left' and 'right' (rather than strafe
left/right in a normal WASD setting) and use a key
like LSHIFT or LCTRL as "strafe" key; and hold that
key anytime you want to strafe, you can use that as
superfast strafing.)
- In this game you have to hold a key to be able
to look up/down with the mouse. (Well, if you set
that key to a mouse-button like RMB or MMB, it makes
mouse-look much more convenient.) Apparently it's
also possible to have toggle mouselook by setting
the mouselook key to numlock or scroll-lock.
- The save game mechanism requires
you to finish a level in it's entirety, in one game
session in order to be able to quite the game and
then load the saved position. Otherwise loading a
game from saved will require you to start at the
beginning of which ever level you where last on,
painful indeed.
- The game incorporates lighting and
SOS. The lighting effects raise and
lower the brightness, not texture swapping as I
believe was in Witchaven.
- Depending on the way the
player dies, you'll see body parts spawn off of you.
- No difficulty level selection options, difficulty
increase each level by design.
- The A.I. is
decent and can predict your position when your
moving, they will throw or attack ahead of you.
Enemies will attack each other if they shoot one
another by accident.
- You can push a block to gain
access to higher areas or other areas of the level.
There are traps to be set off and areas of the
levels need to be jumped preciously.
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(weapon 1) Machete - You start with this weapon, a
simple blade.
(weapon 2) .357 Magnum Revolver - Good damage, slow R.O.F.
(weapon 3) M-60 Machine Gun - Heavy damage, try to use
bursts to conserve ammo.
(weapon 4) Hand Grenade - Press fire to pull the pin and
hold down fire longer to toss it farther away. Grenades will
bounce off ceilings and other objects.
(weapon 5) Flame Thrower - Close range weapon, be careful
not to burn yourself. Fuel is used quickly. Auto-aim only locks
on the vertical, you have to aim left to right.
(weapon 6) Cobra Staff - A long range weapon that destroys
most enemies with one hit. Do not use at close range or you will
toast yourself. Make sure you have a clear field of fire as the
Cobra will detonate on stairs, ledges and walls. Do not shoot
unless you have a target, the Cobra may turn on you.
(weapon 7) Eye of Rah Gauntlet - Used to summon the wrath of
the gods. Produces a cloud over your target and shoots them with
lightning. You must have the target "locked" at all times while
you hold down fire.
Mummy Staff - If your transformed by a mummy
into a mummy this staff is yours to use.
Ammo Items
Six Shot Speed Loader - for the .357 Revolver.
M-60 Ammo Belt (Ammo) - A long ammo belt.
Grenades - single grenades.
Fuel Canister (Fuel) - for the Flame Thrower.
Golden Cobras - Add to the Cobra staff.
Raw
Energy (Magic) - Eye of Ra, Magic.
Magical Spheres -
Found from the dead, hovering over their bodies.
Normal Items
Berry Twig (Life) - Adds health, 5%.
Blood Bowl (Life Blood) - Add more health, 20%.
Magical Essence (Magic) - Purple chalice of Magic.
Cobra Venom Bowl - Green chalice. Reduces life by 20%.
Bubble Nest (Air) - Used while underwater, if
your lungs fill with water then you need to move to a bubble
nest to replenish air. If you don't, you loose health and
eventually loose a life.
Map - Find this item and the current level will
be mapped out for you.
Keys -
Power,
Time,
War and
Earth keys. Find
these golden keys to unlock doors with the same symbol on them.
Scarab Beetles - Touch this and it preserves
your progress only while the game is running and only if you
have an Extra Life for this save
function to work. You start the game with 3 lives.
Golden Sarcophagus - Find this item to end the
level. This will save your progress as completed level and you
won't have to restart the entire level over again when you load
your saved game.
An Extra Life - Adds 1 extra life, loose them
all and you must start at the beginning of the level. With lives
remaining, use the spacebar to come back to life.
Magical Items
Use the [ or ] keys on the keyboard to select
your item, then hit ENTER to activate it.
You can combine items at the same time if you have enough Magic.
There is a notice across the top of the screen
when an item is about to expire, along with a reminder sound.
Still Beating Heart - Activating it will give you full health,
one use. You can actually hear this item beating as you approach
it.
Unseen Eye (Invisibility) - Makes you invisible
for a short while, even removes the player sprite.
Scarab Amulet (Invincibility) - Makes you immune
to attacks and impervious to lava.
Sobek Mask - Magical Egyptian underwater
breathing gear. SoundFX of scuba gear.
Severed Slave Hand
(Increased Weapon Power) - Doubles the damage for all
weapons. Weapons flash Red when activated.
Torch - Lights darkened areas.
Rat - They are harmless unless they get in the
way of your shooting. Many times auto-aim will lock onto them
causing you to "miss" your intended target.
Terrainian (Spider) - Spiders that hop around
and bite you. They can walk on ceilings. You can step on them.
Giant Pirhana - Large fish that gnaw you.
Anubis Zombie - They throw magical spheres at
you and claw you up close.
Am-mit - A large four legged
Rex creature with
crushing jaws. It can fling you around. Has tuff armor but has a
weak spot underneath.
Omen Wasp - Giant Wasps that sting you, hard to
target.
Mummy - Slow moving. They use their staff to
fire phantom skulls. Mummies can be resurrected by the staff
attack. Red phantom skulls transform you into a Mummy giving you
their staff, your movement becomes sluggish.
Bastet - She is extremely fast and has
razor-sharp claws. She can teleport at will.
Magmantis - A large lava type of serpent. Rises
out of lava and attacks by shooting high-speed fire balls.
Kilmaat Sentry - The Alien worker attacks with a
laser pistol. He seeks you out rather fast.
Set - Huge ape-like god. Smashes you and at a
distance shoots energy skeletons from it's eye at you.
Selkis - Women/crab/robot like creature. Shoots
auto-laser and claws you. Spawns a bunch of Terrainian's when she
dies.
Kilmaatikahn (Kilmaat Queen) - The final boss,
she shoots yellow charges at you.