Shadow Warrior (2013)

Well, actually it has more to it than sword, but I really doubt about reboot part. I mean, sure, Lo Wang and Zilla. But Lo Wang is not same awesome grandpa, he is just a comic book collector guy, not nearly as awesome. At least some humour is still there, the more tame one. But yea, it's like Painkiller. Going from arena to arena, some tiny encounters inbetween. Some secrets. Katana is your main weapon and has more depth than most melee weapons in older games. Some special moves like in fighting games, R R RMB, for example. So you can heal yourself for free. And there are few normal weapons, pretty useful sometimes too, albeit not nearly as many as you would expect in older FPS, for example. At least shotgun is really Wracking. You also collectin and find recources by opening shiny chests and boxes and wardropes, which may get really annoying on the second walkthrough. It also tries to give you a fight rating after each arena without telling you what rules does it use. Nothing like having awesome time and then getting 3 out of 5 shurikens. And it's all fun and games until you get so much game that... I mean, it's way too long. Waaay too long. Meaning that it feel artifically stretched out in the latter half of a game. There was some space where you didn't get any new weapons, don't think that any interesting enemies were introduced, not sure. Just kinda overstayed by few hours. I mean, I know that there are gamers who judge games by how long they are and only want the longest experience, but Wang em. Also, music sucks in comparison to original too. It also comes with Viscera Cleanup Detail game, non-serious janitor simulator. At this point I really think that it was the best not as stand-alone game but as a little one-level bonus for Shadow Warrior, just enjoy it here in coop with a friend. The full version doesn't hold anything much, who cares of all those tedious levels. 4 ninja stars. Too bad it's not Shadow Dancer, but that would be too awesome to handle.

So, this game is really good. I mean, really good. That being said, it does have it's problems. The gameplay itself is entertaining, but maybe not as much as to hold out to the end. For me, at least. It gets a bit bland towards the end, but even so, I didn't really mind. The writing is at the same time excellent and flawed. The banter of the main character and his buddy isn't always what you would call funny, it's at least entertaining, and I wouldn't mind if there was more of it. The animated drawn cutscenes are the best part of the narrative, and the plot with it's twists is surprisingly good, as well. Especially the end, even if it wasn't that subtle to begin with. Outside these drawn cutscenes, the plot-related stuff isn't nearly as well written, but again - I didn't really mind as on the whole, the game was just so damn entertaining. It's a solid package and highly recommended. It's an old school game of the modern era, with some clumsiness of the inexperienced(??) team but also with a heart of gold.

Shadow Warrior dx11 surprised me with an interesting story written with quality in mind, good dialogues, exellent voice acting, beautiful graphics, orchastrated soundtrack, meaningful skill tree and upgrades, nice humour and close to flowing combat mechanics. The only wrinckle indeed is about an aspect of the combat mechanics due to the somewhat awkward method to activate powers, yet its impact on the overall experiance is close to negligible. As a personal preference, strict Shooters is a game genre that I typically avoid, so this game is a refreshingly positive experience to have.

Good action, good enough graphics, great music, good story and characters. It is really sad they made second game so lazily... But this one was really fun to play, so it is ok that I've played second part first.

I usually don't play games like this but I find the gameplay (and the occasional humorous bits) very enjoyable.