Shadows of the Damned Review - Pie Reviews

[Elliot]

Shadows of the Damned is a third person shooter by Grasshopper Manufacture, and is described as its creators as a "psychological action thriller". It's executive producer is Suda51 and its creative producer is Shinji Mikami, and if you know anything about the past works of these two (Killer7, No More Heroes for Suda51, Resident Evil 4 and Vanquish for Mikami) then it's pretty much exactly what you might expect from a collaboration between these brilliant minds.

The game is a clear homage to grindhouse theatre, with its focus on extreme gore, wonderfully puerile sex jokes and a low-budget aesthetic (though not quite as overtly film-grain as something like WET), which I attribute to Suda51 - in my experience with his work, this is very much his style. The whole game oozes style, from the elaborately designed, fantastically detailed environments throughout the game that are beautifully horrifying, to the genuinely funny dialogue that throughout the game fills you in on the important characters in the game and makes you care about them to the music and sound design which is undeniably creepy. That's not to say that the game's really "scary" - it's too campy for that, but there are genuine moments where your heart will skip a beat.

The incredibly solid gunplay, upgradeable weapons, well-crafted levels and fine-tuned difficulty curve, however, I could quite happily attribute to the influence of Shinki MIkami. Naturally, the game invites a lot of comparisons to Resident Evil 4, and whilst if you compare the two directly, SotD will come off unfavourably (which is true in my opinion for every single third person shooter ever released when compared to RE4), but it succeeds because it doesn't try to be Resident Evil 4. It does its own thing and it does it extremely well.

You play as "Garcia fucking Hotspur, hunter of demons" and are accompanied by your ex-demon buddy Johnson who serves as your wisecracking sidekick and your weapon, for he can transform into one of three weapons that are upgraded as the game progresses. The upgrade system is simple but effective, allowing you to upgrade your health, and each weapon's firepower, clip size and reload speed, and upgrade points can be bought from the merchant or found hidden throughout the game. Each of the three weapons are very distinct and useful in different situations - a pistol-type thing, a powerful rifle-type thing and an SMG-like thing. The only major problem with the gunplay is that when the pistol-thing gains the ability to fire bombs, they don't work so well. You'll fire a bomb at an enemy and it occasionally decides to pass through the enemy or attach itself on the opposite side of the enemy, far away from where you actually shot. This happens slightly too often to forgive entirely, and is easily the most prevalent and annoying glitch in the game as there are times when you have to use this weapon to proceed.

The game is fairly short, having a chapter structure with 5 chapters that are further subdivided, which nicely separate different environments and instill a sense of progression to the game. The levels themselves are a lot of fun to rampage through, and whilst they're not complex, they all feel unique and have enough little side routes, nooks and crannies to make searching for pickups good fun without letting you get hopelessly lost. This does, of course, lead to the game being extremely linear - not only in the paths you proceed along, but in your approach to the game. There's often one weapon that works best against a particular enemy type, so it's not so much a tactical decision as it is a calculation to whip out the "correct" weapon for the situation, but it doesn't matter so much, as it never feels repetitive throughout the game's seven hour running time.

The game does an excellent job with the visuals in each level, making them all feel very unique but all very hellish in their own way, from creepy darkened streets to sewers (of course there's a sewer level) to swamps, forests, a demon library and the castle of the Devil himself. It's worth slowing down sometimes to take the time to look around at the obvious levels of care that have put into the design of these areas, as it really does shine through. Even though technically the game is pretty mediocre (it runs on the Unreal 3 engine, so horrific texture pop-in and long load times come as standard - if you play fast enough you can run round areas with absolutely no textures for a good 5 seconds, but at least there's no install) the wonderfully macabre art direction makes up for it, and the game is a visual treat. The same care has been extended to the enemy designs, all of whom are spine-tinglingly creepy, as well as the boss fights, all of whom have an interesting if twisted backstory in books found dotted around the game, hilariously narrated by our protagonists. The boss fights themselves are nothing too special, devolving ito, as many others before me have pointed out, "shoot the red spot", but the gunplay really is solid and polished enough to make this satisfying in its own right. The bosses, when you're fighting them on hard, do feel threatening, and will probably kill you a few times.

Perhaps the most odd feature of the whole package is that in the second half of the game there are a series of side-scrolling shooter sections, which came completely out of the blue but were not at all unwelcome, as they provided a nice change of pace and were very well designed in their own right - in the game's credits these sections had their own director, so clearly there was a lot of care put into these and it shows. They're a lot of fun to play through and the visuals in these sections are basic but effective. It's a clever spin on the staples of the third-person-shooter sections, and to be honest, if a good hour or two of this style of play were released by Grasshopper Manufacture as a PSN title with some ramped up difficulty and a couple of minor additions, I'd be more than happy to buy that, however unlikely that seems.

The plot, for most of the game, appears to be the standard "rescue your kidnapped girlfriend" fare for most of the game, but despite the levels of gore and schoolboy humour which would happily lead you to think that there's nothing too clever on show here, there is actually a rather fascinating twist at the end which definitely subverted my expectations and still has me thinking about quite what went on before the game took place. It's worth making it to the end just for this, because by the end you really do care about the characters due to the snippets of dialogue between Garcia and Johnson as the game goes on.

Aside from what I've mentioned about the bombs above and the problems inherent with the technology behind the game, there really aren't too many issues I have with the game. The only thing which did bug me throughout my five playthroughs (and counting) of the game is the fact that it doesn't know when to shut up. The cutscenes are non-skippable (which I can understand given that they're probably used to mask load times) but so many of the cutscenes that are there are so unnecessary - the game suffers what I will call, in deference to Egoraptor,

where it refuses to let you figure anything out for yourself but instead has to shove the solution to everything down your throat. It's not so bad because it's not trying to be clever, it's just trying to be a straight action game, but it's still a little patronising and obnoxious. However, this is such a prevalent problem in modern games that it's unfair to single out Shadows of the Damned for this. Oh, and for the trophy hunters, the difficulty trophies don't stack, but you'll likely enjoy your three playthroughs to get to the plat so you won't care too much.

Given that Shadows of the Damned is an extremely creative new IP that's got a lot of heart and soul in it and is just so very solid in is core gameplay mechanics and so much fun to play , it's disappointing to see that it's sold as little as it has, so I'd ask of you, if you liked Resident Evil 4 or Killer 7, go out and buy this new, because it's a game that's worth everyone's time and attention and it's also very cheap to buy new nowadays. The bottom line is, it's special enough to be worth playing, and that's really the most meaningful accolade I can give to a game.

[Kirbz]

LIAR! you said you were going to do your homework ;-; i believed </3

[Kevinnummer1]

Really nice review Pie, very well written. I have this game ready to be played in a few weeks and I can't wait to start it. It seems like an unique gaming experience which I am surely going to enjoy. Also, do you actually pay attention while watching the credits in games???

[BeautifulTorment]

Really nice review Pie, very well written. I have this game ready to be played in a few weeks and I can't wait to start it. It seems like an unique gaming experience which I am surely going to enjoy. Also, do you actually pay attention while watching the credits in games???

I wouldn't doubt that he does, not even for an instant.

[Lady Lilith]

Love it. This is one of the games that I own, but haven't started yet. This review you wrote about it gives me high hopes for the game.

[Death]

Shadows of the Damned is the best game that no one ever played in 2011.

[eburkulosis]

SOTD was a nice surprise. I'm glad I played it. The controls are what RE5 should have been. (Being able to move and shoot)

The level where you are dancing across Paula's boobies was one of the best levels ever in a video game. Yes, I said it!

Pie, very diligent and excellent work as usual.

[orenjikitty]

I heard many great things about SOTD. I'm thinking of picking it up soon but for now, great review!

[Elliot]

LIAR! you said you were going to do your homework ;-; i believed </3

I finished my review, then did my homework, then went to bed.

Really nice review Pie, very well written. I have this game ready to be played in a few weeks and I can't wait to start it. It seems like an unique gaming experience which I am surely going to enjoy. Also, do you actually pay attention while watching the credits in games???

I was half-watching them, I just happened to see that there was a separate director for those sections. Lucky chance.

SOTD was a nice surprise. I'm glad I played it. The controls are what RE5 should have been. (Being able to move and shoot)

The level where you are dancing across Paula's boobies was one of the best levels ever in a video game. Yes, I said it!

Pie, very diligent and excellent work as usual.

Bewbs are always welcome, even for me!

Thanks for the feedback, everybody!

[Pipsqweek]

Pie, I want to play this now, damn you, my backlog is big enough....

[zane20x]

i like this game easy trophies to get on it

[AnRoDr]

Read the review here ... bumped into the game in a secondhand bargain bin ... bought it