Shadows of The Damned

When demons hear the name Garcia Fucking Hotspur...

Played to completion on Lemon Hunter (Easy)


In Shadows of The Damned, hell isn't your typical vision. Fire and Brimstone are replaced by medieval streets and light barrels. In this hell goat heads expel darkness and alchohol UN-kills people. In this hell the demons fear only one human, Garcia Fucking Hotspur.

Shadows opens up with the gruesome death of your girlfriend Paula, only for her to be revived and kidnapped by the demon king Fleming. Par for the course, you follow Fleming into hell to take Paula back. Here your road movie starts in all it's glory, as you break the sound barrier on your skull motorcycle to get o the gates of hell.

Gameplay in Shadows controls like a more fidgety Resident Evil 4. You have your standard LT-RT shooting configuration that comes complete with a sprint and melee attack. In addition you also have the ability to shoot a light shot that will stun demons for a short while and come into play in psuedo enviormental puzzles. This leads to a pretty standart shooting experience that is broken up by the games main twist, darkness. The darkness essentially covers the map in shadows that slowly drain your health. A lot of the game revolves around expeling the darkness. This usually breaks down to locating a goat head and using the lightshot on it, or finding a darkness spewing hand and stabbing it with your torch. It all boils down to a fun romp that can become a little stale but is usually carried well by the funny quips and banter between Garcia and his Useful friend Johnson.


Garcia Hotspur and Johnson's Boner form

Johnson is your token british sidekick in Shadows. Johnson is your best friend and most useful tool throughout the game. He can seemingly transform into anything, but he usually manifests in the form of one of 3 weapons that you use throughout the game. These weapons: The Boner, Teether, and Skullcussioner are the only weapons you get throughout the game. Luckily they upgrade as you progress through the game, turning into extremely powerful weapons that can shoot mines and look on and trace enemies. Johnson's best trait though is that he has a seemingly endless amount of dick jokes.

Heres where we get to the most interesting and devisive point of Shadows of The Damned, the non-stop dick jokes. Everything from the afformentioned weapon the Boner, to the doors locked by demon pubes, to the seemingly endless quips all revolve around dicks. Dicks are everywhere in this game, and not 5 minutes go by without some dirty reference usually revolving around dicks. It gives the game a certain campy atmosphere that will either make you laugh or make you want to stop playing, depending on your deposition. All in all, if you like dirty jokes you will most likely enjoy this games style.


Oh god RUN!

There are a few things I have a bone to pick with though. Although you eventually get used to it, the shooting is very loose and feels far to floaty for a third person shooter. The biggest offender though is basically the whole 4th act. It opens with a very boring "Turret" sequence where you will hear the main charecter say "taste my big boner" over and over for about 5 minutes. Once your done with that you hop through a portal that takes you to the exact same sequence with a slightly altered landscape. Then after that you repeat the seqeunce for a third and thankfully final time. I can't fathom why they decided it would be good to put 3 badly designed turret sequence's back to back, but then again I'm not a developer. Unfortunately you are then thrust into a side scrolling level that although not bad, it is extremely boring. Then once again, your forced to do 2 more side scrolling levels that are only broken up by extremely short normal gameplay levels. Act 4 really leaves a bad taste in my mouth, and I'm really dreading going through it again on my second playthrough. Luckily the 5th act is arguably the best in the game.

Shadows of The Damned is hard to recommend from a value perspective. The game is about 7-8 hours and has no multiplayer, no new game+, and no replay value beyond just the core gameplay. However I highly encourage any fans of dirty humor to give this game at least a rental, or at least look up a few videos to gauge how well the humor meshes with your personality. Shadows is a game that screams of cult hit, and it's unfortunate that it will most likely be relegated to the bargain bin.

4/5

[Next up for reviews are Portal 2 and Silent Hill: Shattered Memories. Also I'm still looking for feedback to see if people would enjoy game deal blog entries on a semi frequent basis.]