Shadow Warrior 2

I was torn because different people had different opinions on this (totalbiscuit didn't like this), but after taking the plunge I have to say this game is the ****. The combat is fun and it makes you feel awesome dodging and slashing enemies to bloody pieces. The Good: - awesome combat - great variety of guns - funny main character - runs very well on a mediocre system - the price The bad: - NPC cutscene model quality and lipsync leave something to be desired and my biggest gripe: - the inventory management is atrocious. Big, console style lists (which you can presumably scroll with your - ew - gamepad) do NOT belong in a PC title. It's very difficult to find anything. Devs: take a look at how actual ARPGs do it. Take a look at Grim Dawn f.e: UTILIZE THE MOUSE, give items distinct graphics so that you can instantly see what they are, use the screen space efficiently, tooltips on hover.. basic stuff, get it right

Hello, was really looking forward to this game as I really liked Shadow Warrior 1 and hence preordered. Unfortunately, this game is nothing like Shadow Warrior 1. Instead of the Corridor Shooter we had, we now have a pointless open world system which is strung together by jump cuts which bring me right out of the emersion every time they happen. It also has a very bad and pointless lotting system (WHHHYYY DOES WANG NOT AUTOPICKUP STUFF! So much useless bussywork!). So you are moving around very fast during combat (they basically trippled your mobility during fights) just to run around afterwards opening boxes and then to click 10x E to pick up all the stuff basically slowing the game down tremendiously. The weapons do not really feel that powerful as in SW1 for some reason (maybe because you directly start with very bullet spongy enemies while in SW1 you also had weak enemies to slice and dice as you move through the level) Maybe I can describe it this way. Instead of building on Shadow Warrior 1, this game feels more like they started with an empty box and then through ideas and game mechanics from different games into it. So it feels like a Frankenstein creation from Borderlands + Hard Reset + Dead Island but not really like Shadow Warrior 1 or a game consistent with itself for that matter. I got about 1h into the game before I just had to quit but in that hour, there is not really much of a story line. The world is basically overun by monsters and demons but nobody cares besides battling raciscm towards demons apparently. We are still doing jobs for the mob and everyone treats us like shit (WHY?? Aren't we like the most powerful being on this planet?) Yeah, so huge disapointment for me, cannot recommend it at all. Maybe some of this issues can be fixed in the future but most of it (story *winkwink*) cannot.

Remember all the things you liked about Shadow Warrior 1? The great level design; the varied weapon types, where none of the weapons are useless; the great writing and the banter between Lo Wang and Hoji; the intelligently designed enemy types; the relatively few, but interesting, spells and abilities you can level up . Well, that's all gone now. Instead you get big randomized levels with no thought put into them, a million different weapons, all equally ineffectual, no Hoji (instead you get a new sidekick who is not funny, talks much too much, and she and Lo Wang simply seem to hate each other for the whole game, with no chemistry between them), every enemy is a big dumb tank with too much HP, and now you have dozens of skills that are like +5% poison damage, or whatever, instead of anything interesting. Shadow Warrior 1 (the reboot one) is a model of how a "retro" style single-player FPS should be. Shadow Warrior 2 is a terrible mistake- a sub-Borderlands loot-em-up type FPS (at least Borderlands had designed levels and interesting skill trees) that is so overlong and dull, with so little effort put into the writing and design, that it feels like a poor MMO. Why this is is a mystery to me, but I just hope Flying Wild Hog manage to get back to whatever it was they were clearly doing right on the first game (and even on Hard Reset, which is not a great game, but which is much better than SW2).

The game was rather enjoyable and was going to be rather invested in it, the RPG aspects to the game and the equipment swapping and upgrading, worked rather well; however it randomly crashed and due to how the game is saved, this meant hours worth of progress lost. It's unfotunate cause it was enjoyable up to this point, but this has really left a bitter taste. If I'm ever bothered to return, I'll update this review to reflect that experience, but from here it seems like to much of a pain to catch back up and then to constantly quit to main menu, to ensure that it saves. If you do opt to play the game, ensure that you quit to the main-menu at every major-ish point, to ensure that the game actually saves and while you're at it, maybe take this opportunity to do a manual back-up of your save files.

To begin, I'm a massive fan of the original Shadow Warrior, and not as keen to the reboot series. Shadow Warrior reboot 1 had some issues with bullet spounges and fights that went on a little longer than felt nessessary. Shadow Warrior 2 has brought these issues back, and made them an even bigger deal than ever before by adding a faux RPG system that almost encourages you to pause in the middle of fights to swap the elemental aspects of your most powerful weapons because fighting anything without the proper elemental damage feels like trying to hack down a tree wtih a butter knife. They've also added a loot system. To most, this sounds questionable for a series that once hid a quad barrel rotary shotgun in the very first area... Thankfully, instead of a million boring weapons and maybe 30 cool ones, they've added 80 cool ones. Some of them are cheeky references to films and pop culture, others are just added to fit the theme of an area (which are beautiful by the way). One of my favorite was a Tomohawk equipped along side a knife, called the True Patriot. Perfect if you can just close your eyes and imagine demons wearing red coats. The upgrade system from the previous game also makes a return, but I didn't like it there, and dislike it equally here. The original game had you searching for secret areas in wishing wells, jumping puzzles, and hidden rooms to find upgrades like nuclear ammunition and heat seeking rockets, but the reboots seem to think that earning generic experience and cash from slayed enemies is more exciting. YAWN On the positve side, level design in this one is much more open than the previous. Everything is much more vertical than before. Unfortunately much of the AI can't keep up very well in the more vertical enviornments, but they're fun to hop around reguardless. Overall, if you love Borderlands, you should check this out. If you're looking for a return to Shadow Warrior (1997) look at something like dusk or iron maiden.