Kens Labyrinth

Remember all those games where youd wander around aimlessly in first person, killing a few enemies and then taking a few hours to find out where to go? Welcome to Kens Labyrinth, a game designed by Ken Silverman and published by Epic Megagames in 1993. Theres some aliens that are using unintelligent lifeforms to make jelly, and for some reason, they stole your dog, and you have to go in Kens Labyrinth to find it. Ken is an extremely evil superalien that finds it entertaining when you put a bunch of weird lifeforms in the same place and see what happens. So hey, what are you waiting for? Enter...

Gameplay: 5/10
In these years, first-person gaming was no joke. There were already games such as Wolfenstein 3D, Blake Stone, and the Catacomb series, except this one is missing something; Violence. Kens Labyrinth is some odd blend of all the aforementioned games, and I even see some things happening here that you didnt see until Kens future games, like Duke Nukem 3D. Early on in the title we discover we can throw some sort of blob at the enemies, serving as your primary attack for most of the game. The opponents you face are a collection of aliens and other races, and theyre about the stupidest fools youve ever seen. The best strategy is to just open a door, back up, let them all funnel in, and use your dumb blob thing. Eventually the levels get more intricate and the enemies more abundant, but youre still just running around looking for keys into the next room so you can go up the stairs to the next level to look for the keys to the next room so you can blah blah blah blah blah. -5 points for not too much different going on.

Graphics: 5/10
To compare it to something, lets use Doom, which came out in 1993 as well. The first thing I notice is the lack of floor and ceiling textures. Theres also no "vertical" gameplay, everything is on a one-floor plane. The enemies are lame looking and dont have much visual pizzazz. Same with the items. Theres walls that say "Shoot this wall" or "walk through this wall", and I feel like Im in a weird little kids nightmare. -5 points for almost everything looking the same.

Sound: 5/10
Theres some digitized sound effects that do the job, including the typical "Oh." and "Aah." that slips from your mouth whenever you eat an apple or something. The music was pretty cool, a couple songs I liked, a lot more I didnt, but it just doesnt fit the game. -5 points for not being very atmospheric.

Overall: 5/10
It blows my mind to think that this guy programmed Duke Nukem 3D and all those other great games that I mentioned in this post earlier. For real though, does anybody want to chug their way through a freakin ugly maze trying to find the way out? Probably not. Do you want to have some lame weapons and items to use? Nope. Do the enemies make the game more fun? Not at all. Its still a classic game though, showing progression in the genre while keeping it very much the same. Thats why I give this game a five.
http://www.advsys.net/ken/klab.htm

Related Post: