Shadows of the Damned Review

 

One hell of a road trip.

Title: Shadows of the Damned

Platform: Xbox 360, PS3

Developer: Grasshopper Manufacture

Genre: Psychological Horror

Rating: M




     Please take a moment and look at the graphic at the top right. What vibe does this image give off to your psyche? If you’re like me, you most likely thought this was some half ass effort title that EA put out from japan in an effort to make a quick buck off of any poor sucker, who desperately wanted an all action shooter. He’s looking all tough and serious in his purple leather jacket pointing his gun that has a skull on it in a sad attempt to make him more extreme. I bet he has a stereotypical jock mentality and a filthy vocabulary overall. Well what would you say if I told you your thoughts were misguided and that this is honestly one of the best titles I’ve played in a long time? “Shadows of the damned”, is a title that from what I can tell has slipped under the radar in the gaming world. It’s not new. Heck it came out in September 2011 but this is the first game in a long while that I truly felt was worth every penny I paid for.

     Before I go any further, let me say that all that negative stuff I said about the guy on the cover is completely accurate. He is tough, crude, and as egotistical as they come, but SOTD wears that on its sleeve revealing that he also has a heart of gold. Our hero sporting the ridiculous purple jacket is Garcia he’s a character straight out of a Robert Rodriguez movie. The skull on the gun isn’t an accessory, but in fact his sidekick. He’s a floating flaming skull named Johnson and the name of that weapon he’s on is called is wait for it; the Boner. As you sit there chuckling I promise you it gets better because SOTD is a product from Studio 51, the same people responsible for Lollipop Chainsaw.

Demons lurking in the dark cannot be killed.

     The story surrounding Garcia and Johnson is a fairly simple one. They are tough demon hunters ridding the world of biblical evils. No details are given as to why they are doing this or even as to how the two met. Instead players are made to accept the fact that our heroes are well seasoned in their line of work and are very efficient at their job. The premise of their current adventure is your typical run of the mill save the princess bit as Garcia learns that his girlfriend has committed suicide and unless he travels to the underworld to rescue her, she’ll be damned to die over and over again at the hands of the demon overlord Fleming. So in a nutshell, you must go save your woman while slaying countless demons with your boner. Yeah it’s that kind of game. SOTD is a puzzle solving action title with morbid and raunchy humor spewing around every corner that fits the style of the cult classic film Evil Dead 2 in a lot of ways. Garcia, voiced by Steve Blum, (Cowboy bebop) is hilarious especially when conversing with his floating skull Johnson who is voiced by Greg Ellis, (God of War 3). Not since the game “Armed and Dangerous”, have I seen a cast have so much chemistry together all the while making my sides hurt with laughter. The dialog exchanges between the two are so natural and fluid sounding that you can’t help but buy into them being friends who known each other for years.

Our duo discuss what the hell they are looking at.

     Gameplay in SOTD copies heavily from the later Resident Evil games but not once does it feel like you done this before. One major difference is the common occurrence where players must quickly solve tasks or light up the areas before being consumed by the darkness and thecreatures that lurk in it. This constant problem along with other puzzles always kept me on the edge with just enough witty commentary from the two heroes to keep me in a good mood. The game even takes another step to mix up the gameplay with some old school 2D side scrolling levels to keep the experience feeling fresh.

The underworld is full of horrid monsters and doesn't go lightly on the gore.

     Throughout the game your sidekick serves many purposes. When out of danger, he poses as a living torch that illuminates your path along providing a chargeable melee attack when demons get too close. As far as ranged attacks go, Johnson morphs into three weapon types. The already mentioned Boner is the standard pistol type, the Teether which is a machine gun, and the skull blaster which serves as a shotgun. Each weapon use their own unique ammo which are dispersed throughout the game and all have a secondary light shot which is used to light lanterns or to weaken foes made immortal from the darkness. All weapons along with Garcia’s health can be upgraded depending on the player’s personal liking giving everything a real customized feel outside of cosmetics or accessories that sadly don’t exist here.

Garcia whips out his big boner for a giant target.

     For the most part, Controls for Garcia are very easy to use but there were sometimes where his limited vertical aim made shooting larger enemy targets difficult and very frustrating. Bosses have to be destroyed by shooting out red jewels on their body and if one is on their head and you can’t aim no higher than their waist due to where you are standing this can have you yelling BS quite a bit as I did. Luckily though I can only think of two instances though where this was a blatant problem. Some quicktime events do happen in the game but they aren’t unavoidable events as in comparison to the newer Resident Evil titles.


Enimes can easily dwarf our heros in stature but not in ego.

     SOTD may not be breaking any records as far as graphics go, but it’s what one would expect for this kind of title. Gore properly looks like gore and demons have a standard decayed brown look, wearing different types of armor every now and then. The environments however, are really impressive with the various architectures that Garcia must explore. From swamps, to catacombs, to town streets, to even a sleazy red light district, everything has its own unique feel in bringing the underworld to life. The darkness also affects environments in interesting ways providing a few interesting and dare I say erotic surprises.

What circle of hell does this world represent?

     Music can vary from dark and atmospheric to just plain goofy at times. Monsters sound like they should by giving off screams one would expect from something that was wet and rotting, while cartoon slapstick effects support humor when needed. The effects actually outperform the soundtrack as I remember nothing from the music, but chuckle at all the funny deaths I witnessed.

This woman looks better suited as a Metal Gear villian than a servant of Hell.

     Those looking for any multiplayer will be gravely disappointed as no online or co-op mode exists for this particular title. While this hurts replay value I honestly don’t see how the game could’ve really benefitted from a multiplayer element. There’s a severe lack of human characters in the story and having only three weapons would make multiplayer feel tacked on while co-op would ruin the dialog exchanges Garcia and Johnson have. One major flaw in SOTD though has to be the fact that every time you die, players have to sit through a long loading screen and if you combine that with having to sit through impassable cutscenes over and over again, it can lead to some pretty annoying moments.

Just because this the underworld doesn't excuse you from using proper etiguette from time to time.

     Overall I feel that SOTD is a great title that now being over a year old deserves way more popularity then it has gotten. Unfortunately I feel that this title fell victim to poor marketing which doomed it before it had a chance. This title was a pleasant surprise that shot a breath of fresh air into what I felt was becoming a stale genre. The characters are great and likable, the story is entertaining despite how little there really is and I couldn’t wait to see what the underworld had hidden around the next corner. Plus now that the title is at a bargain price, gamers, have no excuse to give this one a look.

Ryan Pierce

Score 8 out of 10

PROS:Garcia and Johnson are hilarious together.
                  Interesting environments.
                  Constant changes in gameplay keep things fresh
                  Has a lot of weapon upgrades

CONS:Only three weapons available.
                   Suffers from load times whenever player dies.
                   Controls can be limited when dealing in boss battles.
                   Not much in terms of replay value.