Written by: Riley Hooper
First shown off in late 2010, Shadows of the Damned was released last June. It was the first game to have gaming legends Goichi Suda (better known as Suda 51, creator of No More Heroes), and Shinji Mikami (creator of Resident Evil) working together as a team. Those two created a game that will definitely be remembered for a very long time.
In Shadows of the Damned, you play as Garcia Hotspur, a demon hunter who's on a quest to save his girlfriend! More specifically, Garcia's girlfriend Paulais taken to Hell by the lord of demons, Fleming. It's up to Garcia and his weapon/best friend/former demon, Johnson, to save her. So they go to Hell. Apparently, it's pretty easy. All he did was drive down a highway on a motorcycle. Anyway, in Hell, Garcia sees Fleming's castle and starts heading there. Throughout the game, Garcia passes through various distinct areas of the game. Sounds like Dante's Inferno...
There are 6 acts in the game. Each act has 5 scenes. At the midpoint and end of each act, you fight a boss, except for the 4th act, which is undoubtedly the worst act. Before each boss fight, you are given the option to read a funny story about the boss that explains what kind of person they were like when they were a human. The stories are read by Garcia or Johnson who always throw in some good jokes. Each act lasts around an hour and a half, so it's a good sized game, which is good because it's single player only with little to no replayability.
Let's talk about characters. Or rather one character. Johnson. He is a floating, on-fire skull that can talk. He is also Garcia's best friend. Johnson is a former demon who has the power to transform. He can become a torch, a pistol, a machinegun, a shotgun, or even a motorcycle. Johnson's weapon forms recieve upgrades after every boss fight. His pistol form is also the source of just about all of the innuendo in the game. The regular pistol is called the "Boner". When upgraded, it becomes the "Hot Boner", and can shoot a "Sticky Payload", which is just a bomb that sticks to enemies. For one scene, Johnson becomes the "Big Boner", which is a ridiculously strong pistol with a 6-foot barrel. Garcia holds the "Big Boner" right at hip level and yells things like "Have a taste of my big boner!" when he fires it. Good job Suda 51.
The game plays almost exactly like a Resident Evil game thanks to Shinji Mikami. It's a 3rd-person over-the-shoulder shooter where your aiming reticle is a laser pointer. It's very reminiscent of Resident Evil 4. In fact, a lot of the game is, especially in terms of environment. But none of that is a bad thing, since Resident Evil 4 was a great game, and some of it's biggest problems were fixed for Shadows of the Damned. Namely, you can move while aiming! That feature better be in the HD remake of RE4!
Graphically, the game is amazing. The gritty grindhouse look perfectly compliments the dark environments of Hell seen in the game. The music is astounding as well. Akira Yamaoka (composer of the Silent Hill games) composed the music for this game, and he did so amazingly. There are the creepy, sullen tracks for when the game delves into it's horror genre, but there are also up-beat rock tracks for when the game gets more light-hearted. The music always compliments the scene perfectly.
Earlier, I mentioned that Act 4 was the worst of the game. That's because it takes every gameplay element that you've been using and throws them away for all but one scene. The first scene has you in a 2-D side-scrolling environment wherethe screen is constantly panning to the left. Garcia is flying through the air and can only use Johnson's pistol form unless he gets a power up. It plays a lot like R-Type. The only nice thing is the graphical change. You go from gritty CGI to light, 2-D paper dolls. The second scene is where you get the "Big Boner". While using it, you can only look around. You can't move. Garcia is standing on a platform and has to defend against waves of large demons that take way too long to kill unless you can get a headshot. And their headshot area is as big as your laser reticle, so it's ridiculously hard. To make it even worse, if even one demon gets to the platform you start from the beginning of that set of waves. There are three sets of waves in the scene. The third scene is another side-scrolling shooter. The fourth scene plays like the rest of the game. The fifth and final scene is yet another side-scrolling shooter. At the end of this scene, you fight a boss who has been shown off the entire game. Every other scene or so, this boss shows up and makes things harder for you, so I was really looking forward to fighting her. Unfortunately, we met anti-climactically in the paper universe. Lame.
All in all, Shadows of the Damned was a really fun game. The achievements were really easy since 70% were story progression, and the rest were killing a certain amount of demons with a certain weapon. Despite its flaws (I'm looking at you Act 4), I really enjoyed the game. The gameplay, graphics, music and humor make up for the shortcomings (Act 4). I highly reccomend playing this game, and hopefully there will be a sequel to pick up from the cliffhanger ending.
Final Score: 4 out of 5
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