Shadow Warrior 2

The game is quite good but far from perfect (mostly played on steam) *The "looter-shooter" gameplay is both a blessing and a curse... The game is far more varied, it's really fun to kill ennemies, but the loot management is boring and kill the pace. *Likewise, the procedural level generation is a good idea, but prevent the game from having memorables levels and encounters like the first one... *The scenario is bad... Not a big problem for taht kind of game, but it's sad when it's compared to the first one which had a surprisingly good plot *The coop is fun, if not for the bugs and crashs... Well, It's still a good game, but the first one was better

First off, ignore everyone that says this plays like Borderlands. It absolutely does not. While in Borderlands, you have to pray to RNG for a good gun, weapons in SW 2 are static. You can find most of them in pre-defined places. So every player will have the same base weapons as everyone else. The only random loot thing in this game are the gems with different stat bonuses which you can put into the weapons + armor. It might seem overwhelming at first but you should quickly be able to tell which stats are desirable and dispose of the rest. And you don't have to upgrade constantly, just once in a while, do a revision and install better gems. You also have to be ready to conform to the game's elemental system. If you don't customize your weapons properly, the enemies will take forever to kill. Just shooting stuff in this game with whatever you find does not work here. There are 4 elements + physical damage types in the game. Every enemy will spawn with resistances, vulnerabilities and immunities to some. So it is always desirable to have at least one weapon of each element ready to go. You change the element the weapon deals by using conversion gems. Each element except physical also has a special effect. Fire burns, Lightning electrocutes + immobilizes, Cold slows/freezes and Toxic poisons + makes enemies explode on death. Later on, these damage over time effect will deal much more damage than regular shots and proccing them will become a priority since they deal % based damage (which directly counteracts the increasing enemy health as you progress through difficulties. The skill system gives the game some longevity. Unless you grind, you absolutely won't max every skill there is. Combat is extremely dependent on quick movement. If you remain still, you die. Simple as that. Otherwise it's visceral and the sound design is perfect. For me, this is a 10/10 game. Never played a second of co-op and it is probably the best FPS game I've played in the last 4 years.

First off: This game is different from the first game in many ways. Do not expect the same style of gameplay. Shadow Warrior 2 adds one very welcome feature to the series: It can now be played in coop with up to 3 friends, so you can slash demons with up to 4 players. Gameplay is very fast paced, fluent and violent. The graphics are extremely impressive for how well it ran maxed out on my (admittetly) older GTX 970. The music is not quite as good as the first game I would say, but especially the main theme is on fire. The weapons are very varied in their design and funtion and are a welcome addition to the genre. Levels are partially based on random generation, meaning that there are several building blocks that will be mixed and matched every time you go to a location on the world map. In my eyes this works really well. There are unfortunately also many aspects that do not work well. First off all, SW2 tries way to hard to copy Borderlands in the way that enemies have different elemental resistances. Loot is mostly given in form of crystals that can be used to imbue weapons with effects like elemental damage or special properties. The issue is that you get absolutely flooded with these items (somtimes 100+) in one single mission - and most of them worthless trash. To upgrade them you can combine several, but the effects of the resulting crystals are random. This is so infuriating! You never get the upgrade you want unless you luckily find it. Secondly, the upgrade menu is just a terrible and unorganized mess. It is not possible get an easy overview of installed upgrades and what the new upgrade will change exactly. Lastly, the story is just stupid in this game and Lo Wang is an annoying prick most of the time, mainly because of poorly written dialogue. Overall a great game, but it tries some new things for the series that do not work very well overall.

Yeah, it should be 5 stars rated in my opinion, it's an awesome game with so much fun! All those procedural maps indeed get a bit repetitive after some time, but the RPG aesthetic of the game makes it still fun to roam around those places trying to find better equipment while slashing through enemies (some of them WAY more bigger than you). BUT An awesome game like this should have crossplay between pc-consoles too, and I think that is my only critique about this gorgeous game. Parkour, RPG elements, first person shooter with melee weapons too, no stamina bar for dashes and jumps (it has double jump!), procedural maps, lots of secundary missions, and of course, the Wang way of telling a story! (and don't forget those demonic bunnies too...) If it had cross play between pc and consoles it would be a perfect game to who likes this genre. =)

Where I come from and maybe what I expected: (skip if you like) I played SW1 with a passion. SW1 gave you what you expect from a shooter like Doom, Quake or the likes. A linear storyline, tunnel like maps which sometimes feel like tunnels, a fixed set of weapons and unlocks. SW1 had some pretty nice mechanics tho. First of all the katana being viable as one of your main weapons made a shooter very melee heavy. Then you could also level perks in an RPG-like fashion. Overall I foung SW1 by accident and I was very happy with it. SW 2 is different in a lot of regards. The maps are used over and over again, modified by story states. Which is kind of okay. You can modify weapons now - which is a fun system only a little clustered after a while. Perks are fun and well designed Story is fun and funny! Really bad jokes as always! lovin that Graphics look great Sound is great Multiplayer is probably great too - have not tried Overall you can see this game was made to play it in multiplayer. Which is why a lot of sacrifices to the single player experience have been made. Which means it is for single players somewhat less gripping. Does not make it bad, just puts a glass ceiling on being really good at a single player experience. In a way you can compare this to Shooters like Borderlands, even GTA in a way. It uses elements of those when it comes to reusing the map with new quests. I did enjoy SW1 quite a lot more because the story kept me going a lot more in SW1. In SW2 you pick a "Mission" and do that, which is very different from just going deeper down one rabbit hole. Overall: It's a 3-4/5 game. It's average when you only play single player but it still has a lot of things you might really enjoy. the weapon modifying system, graphics, the jokes - really could be a lot of those things that have been done well here. It will very likely be an enjoyable or even quite enjoyable game for you.