‘Aztez’ Is Brutal, Bloody And Looking Quite Brilliant

Combining brutal sidescrolling beat-em-up action with a turn-based strategy element and boasting eye-catching visuals, Aztez is a game worth checking out.

While the proposed release date of 2013 is a way off yet, Aztez certainly deserves some attention as the developers slowly but surely put it together to a more and more impressive state. So what is it then?

Aztez is two things actually – on one hand it’s a sidescrolling beat-em-up and a bloody one at that, which is accentuated by the black and white visuals and the red blood being the only other color. On the other hand, Aztez will have you establishing and managing an empire; trading in the politics and economy of pre-Columbian Mesoamerica just as the Aztecs are being established. It’s a combination that strikes me as a much more advanced version of Asterix: The Gallic War if you ever played it.

So far, there’s not a huge amount more that can really be said about the game – it simply must be seen, or even better, played! Yes, there are playable builds of Aztez which, while very old now, are stable enough to have a little poke around in. You won’t get much of a sense of where the game is right now from those builds now though as they are a year old, but from what you can see in the latest gameplay video, the combat is looking fairly deep and pretty fun.

Aztez is expected to be release on Windows and Mac in early 2013 for a price of $10, though none of this is set in stone. More information on the game is available on the official website.