Aliens have invaded the Egyptian town of Kanack and have begun aggressive movments towards other countries. It's up to you (along with Duke Nukem & Indiana Jones if the title sequence is anything to go by) to stop them with your trusty M-60!
3D Realms Duke Nukem Build engine comes to the Sega Saturn in fine style, with several improvments over it's PC brother.
Graphics - Supurb textures and landscapes that move very fast. There's a slight drop in frame rate when in the outdoor locations, but in the tunnels the Saturn easily outdoes a Pentium. Quality textures abound minus the horrific giant pixels that plague Doom on the PC (and probably the Saturn version judging by the early screenshots). You can show your Playstation friends that the Saturn easily does light-source shading plus transparency effects :- One of the best examples are the badguys energy bolts, which bathe the walls of the corridors in a eerie blue glow as they hurtle towards you and unlike most Saturn games, the transparencies are just that, when you pick up an invisibility orb you get the real thing and not a useless webmesh FX. 9/10
Gameplay - It's pretty easy to start off with, with most of the enemies, annoying little spiders being dispatched with ease. However later levels bring you up against lost extras from the Stargate movie, special mention going to the mummies, who hurl heat seeking evil spirits that chase you around corners. There is also a more vertical slant to this game, with some heart stopping jumps needed to traverse certain levels - this brings me to one of the other elements, a saved game takes you back to the last level you reached - the *start* of the level, in the same fashion as Alien Triolgy. There is none of Doom's sneaky tactic of being able save before a life threatening obstacle, which in the case of Exhumed, means some of the levels will have you holding your breath as you leap across lava pits knowing one mistake and you'll be back to the start! The usual mix of weapons are evident; Machete, Pistol, M60 machine gun, Bombs, FlameThrower and Staff of Ra as well as several 'artifacts' that are needed to cross certain sections such as the Sandals of Height, which let your spring higher into the air.
Exhumed adopts a less linear structure ie: keys and objects can be used to reveal sections on earlier levels that were previously unobtainable. Other then that it's the usual mix of exploration and blowing things to kingdom come. Not very original, but hey, why mess with a classic formula! 8/10
Music/Sound - Some impressive Egyptinish tunes, as well as the usual array of weapon FX, flesh crunches, rumbling doors and screams!
Overall - An excellent 3D shooter / Maze game. Easily outperforms Doom on the PSX, with a more technically impressive 3D Engine. Bodes very well for Duke Nukem 3D on the Saturn. Get this instead of Saturn Doom.
8 and a half out of Ten - Buy with confidence Saturn fans!
