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Back in the 1990s, the first-person shooter genre was still very much a work-in-progress, beginning with incredible, pioneering work from id software in the form of Wolfenstein 3D, Doom and Quake, accompanied by a flood of so-called 'Doom clones'. Bolstered by the arrival of hardware-accelerated 3D for PC gamers, players could explore ancient castles and realistic cities, even exploring the outer edge of space through the eyes of their avatar. In the years of that followed, the industry exploded with unbridled creativity as developers tried their hands at building the next great first-person experience. Some succeeded, others failed but one small developer situated in Redmond, Washington delivered its own hugely significant contribution to the development of the genre. Lobotomy Software was founded by a group of ex-Nintendo staffers, who partnered up with engineers from Manley and Associates and created one of the best first-person shooters of the 90s. They called it PowerSlave, but European gamers will know it by its other name: Exhumed. On consoles, this remarkable game redefined what a first-person shooter could be with its unique focus on traps, puzzle-solving, platforming and, yes, shooting. It delivered a fresh take on the genre that set the stage for releases like the Metroid Prime Trilogy that would follow years later.
Thanks to its state-of-the-art Slave Driver engine, PowerSlave was also a technical masterpiece on Sega Saturn, a remarkable piece of 3D engineering that redefined expectations from the hardware. What this technology delivered was all the more stunning bearing in mind that many game developers were still struggling to get good results from FPS games on the limited capabilities of the consoles of the era.
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