Shadows of the Damned

One could argue Resident Evil 4 brought about the next-gen beginning of the third person shooter genre, and Gears of War solidified it as a solid action game.

Shadows of the Damned is a third person shooter. You press a trigger to aim, you can dash around, and you have an assortment of weapons and you look over the shoulder. But it is completely different from any other third-person shooter you've played. Mostly because it's chock full of dick jokes.

WARNING: This is a M rated game for lots of immature humor, violence, and other stuff, so this review will probably reference that fact. I'll try to remain as tasteful as possible, but I mean...this game has a gun called the "Boner." I don't even know how to spin that.

The game is actually a combination of a "dream team" of sorts for Japanese horror/weird games. Sudo51, well known for his bizarre Killer 7 and the No More Heroes series on the Wii, is at the helm, and Shinji Mikami, creator of the Resident Evil and Devil May Cry games. Even Akira Yamaoka, composer of the fantastic soundtracks from the Silent Hill games jumped onboard, adding his talent to the already all-star developers.

What they made was a profane, wickedly funny, and quite clever shout out to the B-horror movies of the 80s and 90s. The game is very much the Evil Dead of video games (and even has a chapter called "As Evil as Dead"), down the the goofyness and stupidity that made those movies classic.

That's one way to stun a demon. 

What is different, however is the influence of Sudo51's toilet humor, which takes the already strange package and just knocks it into the next level.

Garcia "F***ing" Hotspur (that's how he introduces himself) is a demon hunter. But apparantly he's pissed off one too many demons, because Fleming, lord of the underworld, kidnaps his girlfriend Paula and sucks her down to hell. Hotspur leaps in after him, obviously, and all sorts of zany and crazy things happen.

First off, the dick jokes, which is what you want to know about. There are a sizeable amount (pun intended? Gah, now I'm doing it). This is mostly because Hotspur has a hilariously un-profane (he goes out of his way to say "fudge" or "poop" instead of actual cuss words) floating skull former demon named Johnson. Yes, Johnson. He actually reminded me a lot of Bob from the Dresden Files, considering it was a flaming talking skull demon with a british accent. Johnson and Hotspur play off each other wonderfully, and their banter is probably one of my favorite parts about the game.

You know, aside from all the jokes about the male anatomy.

Garcia Hotspur and his Johnson. That...came out wrong. 

Johnson transforms into the various guns (or a torch) that Hotspur uses. These guns have timeless names like the "Boner," "Hot Boner," "Big Boner," "Teether," "Dentist," "Skullfest 9000," and "Skullcussioner" to name a few. In truth, however, you really only have three guns that get sizeable upgrades throughout the game. You have your standard heavy-hitting, slow shooting pistol; your machine gun that eventually gets the ability to lock on; and a shot gun slash grenade launcher. The shotgun gets an upgrade near the end that creates a giant bouncing exploding skull which you use (aside from killing dudes) to go bowling, play a giant demonic game of plunko, and plenty of other stupidities.

Garcia is an awesome protagonist. We need more Hispanic characters in games. 

Yes, this game is really weird. But it is also really good.

After you get used to the fact that the cursor isn't always in the middle of the screen when aiming (which makes the first few hours hard, even for those who are familiar with these types of games) the game is actually a very competent third person shooter. You have the option to dodge at any time which, among other things, seems to make you temporarily invincible if you time it just right. This (as well as the ability to move and shoot; suck it Resident Evil 5) means that even though Garcia sometimes moves like a tank, I never died because I thought the game was being cheap.

And the game is cheap. More than once I was yelling at the screen because of an unfair hit, or because he'd reloaded instead of finishing an enemy off. Thought that isn't my biggest problem with the game.

The biggest issue the how linear it is, and to a fault. Like Singularity (expect a review of that soon) when doors close behind you, you can never go back through them. So if you mess up or forget something, or go through a door that you don't think is advancing the plot but in fact it is, then you are just SOL. It checkpoints, and there is no way back. This is completely infuriating at times, especially when you know you missed a secret, but now there's no way to fix it. Lack of a chapter select or new game plus only exacerbates this fault.

But the game manages to swing past these faults by being wickedly clever, and having a distinct sense of style that you totally buy into. Suda51 is famous for being weird but also having everything fit together perfectly, and Shadows of the Damned has a theme and a style and sticks to it. It's sort of a...hispanic hell mixed with general demonic weirdness...in the city, with offensive jokes. I really can't think of any other way to go about describing this; you have to play it.

This is exactly what you think it is

One final note about the humor: I'm usually not one for juvenile jokes. I'd like to think I have a more...refined taste in humor, one that isn't focusing entirely on anatomy and what-have-you. However, while many of the jokes in Shadows of the Damned made me groan, it was with a smile on my face, and I never once cringed. I actually laughed more often than not, the combination of the presentation and the clever ways they presented such...tasteless material enough to win me over.

This isn't a game for everybody, especially people easily offended by that sort of thing. But I can say I had a blast playing through the game. However, it is also worth noting that it took me only about 8 hours to finish it on normal, and with no multiplayer or bonuses to speak of that isn't a great value. While I wouldn't pay a full $60 for it, it's a solid weekend rent, or if you can pick it up for around $25 you'll probably consider the money well spent.

So...Rent it,  or Buy if under $25. 


If I had a star rating, it would probably be Four out of Five. I have no idea if I'm going to rate games like that, though, so it might be a completely moot point.