Shadows of the Damned

Calling Shadows of the Damned a weird game just doesn’t quite do the experience the justice it deserves. The pure flair of the strangeness has to be applauded, for this is not a game that tries to be bizarre by stuffing it down your throat, this is Hell seen through the eyes of Suda51 (Killer7, No More Heroes) and Shinji Mikami (Resident Evil), thus abandon all hope ye who enter here.

Sadly there is nothing Divine about this comedy. Demon hunter Garcia F*cking Hotspur (I swear, I did not make that up) travels to the City of the Damned to reclaim the soul of Paula, his suicidal girlfriend, from the lord of Hell, Fleming. Of course, a journey into the lower bowels of the underworld would not be complete without the assistance of your joke cracking, foul mouthed, floating skull sidekick, Johnson.

If you gave a short chuckle at the mention of the word Johnson (pause for another chuckle), you are in luck, since that is exactly what was intended - you quickly realise this as a barrage of toilet humour floods your sensors like a burst sewage pipe. Shadows of the Damned made sure it earned that M (Mature) rating beyond any doubt as it is literally littered with sexual imagery and profanity. I’m not saying this as a critique, I actually laughed at most of the jokes and enjoyed the fact that the game does not seem to take itself seriously at all, but rather I’m mentioning this because it is a major part of the game, and as such if you are easily offended then this is definitely not for you.

All vulgarity aside, the game itself is a pretty standard third-person shooter, which is also pretty strange if you think about it. Here you have Suda51, the man responsible for the total head-trip that was Killer7, and Mikami, the man who turned an entire series on its head with Resident Evil 4, but halfway through Shadows of the Damned the repetition already starts to get to you. Fighting wave after wave of enemies until some unseen higher (or lower) power decides you’ve had enough and can now move on; taking out bosses by hitting red glowing bulbous weak spots; upgrading weapons to more damage or capacity; these are all mechanics employed in hundreds of other games. Sure, Johnson can morph into different guns and vehicles, but it's not particularly innovative.

In this sense the game doesn’t do itself justice. The gameplay does a tremendous disservice to the surroundings and environments, lacking in the same sense of adventure and originality that the City of the Damned has to offer. All of this is not aided in any way by the fact that the combat feels a bit clunky and the camera is zoomed in just a bit too close whilst trying to fight a massive horde of enemies. Fortunately this isn't too frustrating, but that's due to the homing-bullet machine-gun upgrade which pretty much makes any difficulty level other than Hard a breeze, removing any real challenge.

As a unique tour through Hell, Shadows of the Damned succeeds in many ways. I loved the Tarantino/Rodriguez Grindhouse feel to most of the game and the Evil Dead tribute section is fantastically portrayed. But it's also a game with faults, and while there are certainly highlights throughout, it never quite manages to to separate itself from other games when it comes to the gameplay. At the end of the day, this a game that speaks to a very specific type of gamer, and offers more of a nostalgic trip for fans of Suda51 and Shinji Mikami than anything else.

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