Powerslave

I'm sure the game itself is fun, but my experience with this version of it was awful. I don't know if DOSbox is to blame but in short the game controls horribly. Strafing with keyboard is so slow it's essentially useless and if you try and strafe with the mouse controls it instead sends you into the stratosphere. Trying to walk and look around at the same time also barely works, from what i could understand assigning dedicated keybinds for strafing is what causes a problem. I tried to download some fanmade fixes but couldn't get them to work. TL;DR: if you're a computer wizard or you have experience running old games, i'm sure you can get your money's worth here. If you're a random shmuck like me, play something else.

... but adding mods made Powerslave a 5 star for me. I have really been enjoying my time with Powerslave so far. Never played it back in the day but I love going through old school boomer shooter games, so I had to give Powerslave a shot. Being a DOSBox game, I pretty much knew what to expect from PS and it hasn't let me down. Kill baddies. Find Keys. Continue on. Repeat. The Egyptian theme is chefs kiss on the overall presentation for Powerslave and helps PS stand out from other boomer shooter games from the time. The maps, enemies, powerups, and keys are all skinned in the Egyptian theme, and I feel it works well. The soundtrack is a banger, a slapper, and a toe tapper. It's been keeping me locked in while I'm playing. With that said, the vanilla version is pretty rough play. Normally, I try and tackle all of the old school boomer shooter games in their vanilla form first and try the game out how it was released back in the day. That was not a good idea with Powerslave. The out of date controls can make combat a pain at times. The framerate can dip down real low and the gameplay chugs because of it. The save system is unique (maybe?) for the time using checkpoints and a life point system instead of being able to save whenever you want but it can lead to some frustrations upon death. Adding BuildGDX to your Powerslave experience (or other mods I'm sure) really do change the game a lot. Smoothing out the controls and using up to date FPS controls feels so good. Adding mouse aiming is always a positive for me, though I kept the auto aim feature on because of the dang crabs! The framerate gets smoothed out and gameplay chugs go away. Being able to change the game to add save whenever instead of using the checkpoint/life system is a real life and time saver. If you enjoy old DOSBox shooter games, then Powerslave should be an easy add to your collection but needs mods to truly shine.

Exhumed (Powerslave in the US - Imagine trying to get that name past the board of game censors now) I played the PS1 version first and because of that it is the version I prefer. If you want a shooter.. this is probably a better game. However out of the box the controls on install are awful There are fan made patches and if you know DOSBOX you can fix it. As standard it doesn't seem to recognise any joypads and the default key-binds are bizarre. I don't think they are designed for human hands. Again they can be fixed but it takes work and - being an old game - it requires the use of old fashioned methods or getting one of the fan patches. This is a good game. It might not be my favourite - but as both will soon be available does that matter? Oh the music in all versions is WONDERFUL. It is one of the most atmospheric sound tracks in any game. Well worth the money. Happy to play it while I sort out the PSX version on Retropie (I have the original PSX disks)

I love Powerslave, it's actually one of my favorite shooters; ever. I decided to give this 3 stars however, because the PC version is pretty mediocre when compared to the SEGA Saturn, and even the PS1 version (maybe), but it's still fun. The PC version had terrible strafing and it hasn't been fixed for this release, still. This is the European version, but the listing says 'Powerslave' instead of 'Exhumed'. If you want to play this, I do recommend, but go in realizing you're playing an inferior version. For the true experience, play it on SEGA Saturn. Otherwise, the 'PC' version here is just Egyptian Duke Nukem minus one liners. Like Duke, the story is still interesting.

Exhumed! Exhumed! AKA Powerslave. I once acquired the big box US release for a measly pound but by that time I'd moved on to the Dreamcast and wasn't interested. I gave said box away years ago and this game had disappeared into my memory hole of unplayed games. Fast forward to 2020 and all those memories of desperately wanting this on the Sega Saturn came flooding back! Having read a few reviews and downloading a source port (Build GDX), I can only report that I love this game! It's little more than in a Doom-Clone using the Build Engine but the aesthetic and soundtrack carry this game a long way. 7hrs in and I'm deeply in love.