I would like to start this review by stating 2 things; 1) Anyone who is very easily offended, stop reading now, because this isn’t going to be pretty…And 2) – There will be a tremendous amount of foul language, blood, gore and very descriptive analagies used through this review, as it wouldnt be right without them. All clear? Good.
So…To start off the review:
WHAT THE SHIT HAVE I JUST PLAYED?!
I have never played a Shadow Warrior game previously, but Lord have mercy, I should of done if the second game is anything to go by! It is quite possibly the one of the most over the top FPS/RPG’s I have played, and you are thrown, near enough, straight into the action. You play as a Yakuza, Deadpool-esque assassin named Lo Wang (geddit?), who for whatever reason is called to fight hordes of demons to save some sort of girl? I mean to be fair who cares when you get stuff like this happening every two minutes:
The game follows Lo Wang on his quest to save the world (and get the girl) and gives you A LOT of options to do it. I think the absolute sheer scale and upgrade capability of the weaponry was the thing that really kept me intrigued; that…And the sheer amount of blood. I mean, there is a lot of gore, like a serious amount of gore. It’s like ‘Doom took a shed load of cocaine’ gore, which is never a bad thing. All of the weapons can also be upgraded in varying ways, depending on your play style which again just adds to the creativity of the game.
I mean there’s a chainsaw AND a chainsword in the game to throw up extra levels of insanity. With the chainsaw you can move your mouse around to adjust the angle of your decimation. Genius.
You can also upgrade your character depending on your play style, maximising the magic damage you do or alternatively (like me) maximize your health regen so you can just run around like a headless chicken.
There are also varying secrets in the game to add to anyone’s ‘completionist’ part of their brain. Thinking about it this is probably the only reason that I would replay, after completion, unless I wanted to show someone how mental it was. The game itself is really great fun, and can be very challenging at times also. You are constantly reminded that you are just a dude with a lot of weapons and some super powers, particulalrly in the harder difficulties. One thing I did love from this game is that it doesn’t chastise you for playing on the easiest difficulty, telling you it’s ok if “After a long day, all you want to do is feel like a goddamned superhero”.
The boss fights are also really challenging, causing me to curse quite a lot and at one point actually turn the game off to take a breather, whilst this may turn some people off the game; the Dark Souls crowd will find a lot to love here. The game play itself will definitely reward a quick thinker, which sadly I am not.
All in all the game is really great fun. I found myself just running around blowing demons up for the fuck of it, which I had no problem with. I am sure that there is a very in depth story behind why I am doing it, but I soon forgot what it was when it stuck 100 demons in front of me and gave me dual uzis to slaughter them with.
If you want a blood bath, particularly for those of you who have now grown bored of Doom, then this has to be the go to game for you. All in all it is just really great fun.
9/10
Pyro
Read Pyro’s other reviews HERE