Shadows of the Damned Review

I gotta admit, I was not interested in this game when I first saw it at my local Hastings. To me, it just looked like another supernatural FPS like Clive Barker's Jericho or Darkwatch. I should pay more attention to the names on the game boxes. If I had, I would've noticed that this game was developed by Grasshopper Manufacture and produced by Suda 51, the ones responsible for a few of my favorite under-appreciated games.

Also, Shinji Mikami worked on it who also worked on Viewtiful Joe and, as Wikipedia put it, "created" Resident Evil 4(one of the best, most influential games EVAR) and Vanquish.
This game has quite a pedigree.

The game seems a lot like Devil May Cry at its basest level. You play as a demon hunter named Garcia Hotspur(rattlesnake sound), who has to rescue his girlfriend Paula from the demon lord Fleming.

As I said before, I assumed that this would be an FPS. Actually, it's a third person shooter akin to RE4, but it's a bit more like Gears of War(minus the cover system).

The demon world is one of my favorite things about the game. It's just such a wacky and interesting place where everything kind of works in opposite ways. Garcia asks Johnson why, if demons love darkness so much, they don't shroud all of the demon world in it. Apparently, too much darkness is harmful to demons just as too much sunlight is harmful to humans. Liquor heals you, or, as a support character says, "unkills" you. This leads to some hilarious in-game animations where Garcia grabs Sake bottles by the pack and stuffs them into his coat. Then there's the magical goat heads that protect you from darkness. Didn't you know goats are a source of light?

I don't know if a sense of humor improves the gameplay, but it does make the game a lot more enjoyable. In game dialog between Garcia and Johnson is pretty good, with Johnson being one of the funnier characters I've seen in a game.

The main villain, Fleming, is another aspect of design that I quite like. I wonder if I'm the only one who's tired of the usual dark lord type who wears a cloak and has a flaming helmet with flaming horns with kittens impaled on them.

I like Fleming's toned down design. It's a lot less cliche to me. Not that he's not creepy. Jesus, look at him. He's like a reverse Asura from the neck up. Yay! Hindu reference! Also, inside his coat seems to be an infinite void. Who knows what might come flying out of it later on?

I played the game on normal difficulty(Demon Hunter level, the highest being Legion Hunter and the lowest being Lemon Hunter), and I found it pretty easy, but not effortless. It's kind of like how in Bayonetta, the game is fun when you fight a lot of weak enemies, but not as fun when you fight a few big guys. This game eschews that and you mostly fight numerous weak enemies. I found this more enjoyable. Especially when you pull off a headshot on your first try and you get a little zoom in cutscene of the enemy's head exploding.

As for the downside, the game is a little short. I beat it in less than a day. (Or maybe that's just because I played it so much). Also, I hope you like that paper cutout art style on the loading screen, because you're forced to sit through it in three interminable sidescroller levels. You even fight a boss in it...it's not the best.

I very much enjoyed this game, though. It's a great little bit of inspired wackiness that you don't see enough of these days. Garcia is an awesome hero(not as interesting as Travis Touchdown, but still fun), and I think Johnson should go down as one of the all time great video game sidekicks. Nothing revolutionary, but it's great fun. Go to hell in Shadows of the Damned.

The Five Killers

Adding another thing to the pile of, "Could have been awesome" is The Five Killers.



This series began production sometime in the 2000's, with Studio Gonzo(Afro Samurai, Samurai 7) in charge of the animation. But nothing has been released about it since '07. The website is still up, for some reason. Take a look.

I can't find the Wikipedia page anymore, though. It seems to have been deactivated, along with producer Eric Calderon's page. Huh.

Anyway, the best of what I could glean from this series, I got from the website, which I will quote here:
"The story begins on a rainy afternoon in Boston, when four of the estranged killers gather for an unexpected funeral. Knife is dead, and no one knows who murdered him. Since they've all been out of the game for a long while, Knife's death comes as a shocking surprise--but one they all know to be possible given their line of work.

The funeral doesn't go smoothly. Immediately, uncomfortable glances, sudden arguments, and old accusations begin to fly as the remaining four confront one another with the bitterness and jealousies that originally drove them apart--

--until a fifth mourner arrives. Dressed in white and announcing himself as "The Droid," he cheerfully takes credit for Knife's assassination--and declares the other four to be his next targets. On the run, forced together in self-defense, the four race around the world trying to find who--or what--is behind this mysterious "Droid" and why they're marked for death.

With an explosive ending, life death, immortality, and love all converge in an emotional and shocking final conclusion."

Though I am suspicious of anything that touts the power of its own ending, I did want to see this get made. It kind of reminded me of Killer 7. In a good way. Plus, I wanted to hear the Droid's cold, echoing, metallic voice gloating about Knife's death. Plus, damn it if I weren't intrigued by the premise: "Three die, two survive, one lives...forever." That's the kind of tagline that sticks with me.

Sadly though, it looks like we'll never get to see The Five Killers.