Shadow Warrior (2013)

Great to see the Wang back. Lots of fun as a game should be. Would have preferred the original more mature voice and accent for the comments, or at least something similar. Now, how about doing the same thing for Duke ....... this is what we wanted to see in Duke Forever.

I'm so divided I felt the need to write a review. All in all: If you don't like really grindy action games, I can't recommend it. Even if the overall design, presentation and ideas are compelling. Shadow Warrior has a big and, in itself, fun arsenal of abilities and weapons. The way they are managed is pretty amazing. However: In a game like Half-Life 2 (2004!), there is only one special ability (Gravity Gun), and yet the designers found so many interesting and fun ways to use that ability, and to extend it. Throughout the campaign and even the two sequel episodes, the Gravity Gun doesn't get boring. SW is the exact opposite. There are a lot of abilities but all the designers turn them into is "uh yeah you can use them to either immobilize or sword-slash monsters, in different looking ways". This leads to the game becoming a drag around the tenth of the 17 chapters. I can completely see why I once abandonned it. It becomes incredibly repetitive: You'd be better off playing a Multiplayer FPS, as the challenges are devoid of variation. "Increasing difficulty" is equaled with "more of the same enemies". The storyline seems interesting, but is told badly. Mostly via pretty, but incomprehensible cutscenes. I also kinda hate how the tone during the first half is goofy and parodic, and then tries to become all dry and serious. This is a game where you get locked up in battle areas with a bunch of enemies in order to completely wipe them! How could anyone take this seriously?

Walk... get trapped in a room to survive some kind of hord mode battle... walk again... get trapped in another room to survive another hord mode battle... repeat this for the next 12-15 hours + some boss battles that are easy to the point of become boring. Lo Wang lines are fun, most of the time times, but this game is not.

while graphically impressive and very humorous, Shadow Warrior (2013) is a flawed game: graphical issues are a common complaint among players (visual stuttering, spontaneous FPS dips, screen tearing, below-30 FPS upon V-Sync), and the game is generally badly optimized; combat is gory and fun, combining ranged and melee combat and supported by upgradeable spells - however due to the scarcity of medkits the player often relies on the healing spell, which practically guarantees survival, making the already-easy enemies even less threatening, and boss battles only tedious; and the movement mechanics (fast dodging to replace the snail's-pace running speed), combined with visual stuttering, actually made me nauseous, which is a first for me after two decades of FPS. I'm also not a great supporter of using the franchise name to call this a remake - it's very, very different from the original (which is a must play), the relation is otherwise only indicated by small homages in-game, so this use of the title name feels cynical. Making it a new IP would have served it better. Overall, the humor, enemy design, level design, combat and voice acting are very good, making Shadow Warrior (2013) a very entertaining game for anyone who can overlook (or overcome) the issues above and doesn't look for especially challenging gameplay. It's definitely not a "remake" of the original - they're not even remotely similar - but it is highly entertaining otherwise.

The game was just FUN to play. Discovering and using new weapons and powers was enjoyable. The gameplay got a bit repetitive near the end, and it had a couple spots along the way where you had to kill every hidden enemy/do the hidden thing to be able to unlock the next area to get to- which you wouldn't know before you did it, but I played through the whole thing, which is a rare enough thing for me these days. I found the deeper mythos and story a bit convoluted, but the jokes and aesthetic were self-aware and really hit the mark- I found myself actually looking for and hunting the fortune cookies, even if I didn't need the health, and grinning at the intentional silliness of the jokes, and I always knew what the characters' were after and what their motivations were. All men eat, but Fu Man Chu.