Shadows of the Damned is an enjoyable thrill ride, even if it hits a few potholes along the way.
Created by Suda 51 and Shinji Mikami in combination with EA, Shadows sets you up for something wildly different and out there. The game is a Third -person shooter were you take control of the flashy, heavy-accented, Demon hunter, Garcia Hotspur, along with his trusty sidekick, and arsenal, Johnson.
The story starts off with Garcia finding his beloved girlfriend taken by the Lord of Evil, Fleming. Hotspur is a well-known demon hunter amongst his adversaries, and it's no surprise that they would take the love of his life, Paula, as a bargaining chip for their dirty deeds. The story doesn't evolve much from the fact that bad guys took your girl, and now it's time to kill everything in your way to get her back. The real draw is the chemistry and hilarious banter from both Johnson and Hotspur throughout. Raunchy, dirty, and straight up crude dialogue between the two can come off as silly to straight up Laugh-out-loud funny.
The game takes place in the demon underworld, or hell(whichever you prefer). At its core, Shadows is a very linear third person shooter.No real freedom or exploration amongst the gloomy villages, dark castles and catacombs that you venture in, but it's the Enemies, Bosses and moments that change up the linearity that makes Shadows shine. Enemies can be mindless corpses to menacing Electro-charged monstrosities that will end your life in a heartbeat. The action stays fresh with Hotspur's changing and original arsenal. Johnson, not only provides hints and the usual humor, he is also your torch and your weapons. There are three basic weapons which get numerous changes and upgrades after each boss sequence. Each weapon at its core, plays as acommon weapon in modern shooters, such as a pistol, shotgun and Machine gun. But as they get upgraded Your Machine gun transforms into a massive heat-seeking repeater and your shotgun gains the ability to charge up and launch massive bombs on wayward enemies. Although there are only three-weapons available to you, they change constantly and are easily switchable in a fire-fight with just a press of a button, that it makes fire-fights quite fun and hectic all the same. The game also let's you upgrade firepower, capacity and or health of your character with the use of red gems littered throughout your adventure
The game breaks up the horde of enemies by having well-timed and welcomed boss fights. These fights are not only fun, but will challenge your mettle as you find each boss's weaknesses and patterns. Beating a boss rewards with with an upgrade to gem to one of your current weapons and makes it stronger as well as adding some nice mechanics such as heat-seeking bullets to charged shots.
Even with a sick arsenal, there are moments were Hotspur faces off the darkness. The darkness will consume a given area making enemies harder as well as invincible till your are able to light up the area with some light. Shadows also uses some puzzles with switches that can only be activated when in the darkness, making you even more vulnerable to attack. These moments are a nice change of pace, along with some other moments such as some 2-d side-scrolling levels and a gauntlet of enemies were you can only use a weapon knows as "The Big Boner"
The game, however has its shortcomings, unfortunately, and one major one is the overall length of the adventure. The game keeps the humor and action fun through-out, but it is all over too soon. The game has been stated to last 10-12 hours, but my play-through finished abruptly at only 7 hours and 33 minutes. I did not rush through the game, since the game doesn't really allow for much exploration or any diversions aside from the main adventure. Also the game lacks a new game+ feature which it greatly needs, and offers no real reason to play again
Another minor quibble is moving and aiming can be quite...stiff, for lack of better word. Garcia can sometimes be hard to control, especially during some chase scenes where his life depends on it. And sometimes the controls can be unresponsive, especially having the run button on the right trigger(xbox version).
From a technical standpoint. Shadows is mostly great with nice lighting effects and sharp visuals. Some areas can be overly dark or too saturated at times, but all in all, it looks great. Audio is solid throughout, especially with surround, where you are able to hear disembodied voices and howls coming from the creaks and shadows around you. The soundtrack is also a welcome addition, supplying with nice rock rifts to more somber chilling tunes at the right moments.
Shadows of the Damned is a welcomed entry into the Third-person genre, offering great visuals and sound, Varied and fun gameplay mechanics and some very humorous dialogue between the two protagonists.Shadows never really takes itself seriously, which can be a breath of fresh air amongst all the stale and copied games out there Even with it's short length and small hurdles, Shadows is both equally enjoyable and a blast to play.