Shadow Man Remastered

If you were a fan of the original, can confirm - they didn't mess it up. It's exactly what a remaster should be, with enhanced visuals that don't change the style of the original, and the option to use the old muddy textures but with superior lighting. Additionally, the controls (on gamepad at least) are far smoother and more intuitive than they were before, and Shadow Man feels as agile and nimble as he was always clearly meant to be, strafing around enemies and rolling out of danger (he now auto-locks targets, instead of only locking targets when strafing). Various old grievances have been adjusted - the shadow gun is no longer annoyingly loud, and the menus no longer spam that stone noise. So if you're a fan? Yes, get it. Right now. There are some minor issues (the occasional loading/streaming hitch, I think perhaps tied to music cues), and the game froze once for me last night after a 2 hour session... but that'll be patched I'm sure. If you've never played Shadow Man before, here's a summary: Imagine Ocarina of Time meets Dark Souls, with huge interconnected levels, a general sense of persistence in the world, lots of platforming, some environmental puzzling, and some merciless enemies. The soundtrack is eerie, the environments are surreal, varied and imaginative, the story is compelling, and you'll feel like you're on one big dungeon crawl, one massive journey, with every turn either bringing you something new and unexpected... or something familiar that makes you realise you've just unlocked a shortcut. Over the course of the game, you'll explore a grim land of the dead occupied by deranged zombie creatures, a massive gothic tower full of lunatics and nightmarish industrial facilities... and then you'll swap over to the real world, and explore an abandoned tenement building, the London underground, and a maximum security prison full of headless bodies re-animated by dark magic. It's full of action, wonder and sheer horror, with some moments of dark comedy.

I was one of the few advocates for the innovative experiment that was Shadowman back in the day. A few bad ports and technology outpaced by ambition gave it a bad reputation, but a fierce cult following. And now it's back and it's the correct kind of remaster at last! None of the internals were messed with beyond tweaks to make it run and look better. No censorship I could see. There's some hiccups but to be fair they were there in the original game too (some weird animation glitches I recognized really didn't need to be ported). But it looks GREAT in higher def and kept the character and dark atmosphere that made this game a classic. Also THEY MADE A LESS ANNOYING SPIRIT GUN SOUND! I'm amazed they bothered to do that, but I'm very grateful! Now I can blast away without it sounding like a rusty trombone. I'm docking one star for the sake of fairness because this is a TOUGH game, and not always for incredibly fair reasons. Sometimes you'll get lost, get frustrated, feel you should be able to get somewhere you can't yet because you haven't got a power up from later in the game. Monsters are tough, numerous, and hit-scan. Levels are labyrinthine and need pin point accurate jumps sometimes. Luckily death is seldom a big deal. You'll get sent back a fair bit but usually you'll quickly get back to where you were and with patience and persistence you will be rewarded with diverse locations, great voice acting, and crazy supernatural comic book insanity you couldn't get anywhere by the 90s. If you don't mind a grim, grim game check in. Watch a couple walkthroughs and read an online manual or two if you get stuck. It's a little rough around the edges still, but they were kept because the people making this believed in the original vision and kept it solid. Come on slowpoke.

Shadow Man was a masterpiece when it was released and it still is now more than 20 years later. The unique atmosphere, music, level design, story and much more, just great. It is a lot of fun to collect these dark souls. While I didn't have time yet to play this remaster extensively, it offers a lot (new content, full resolution, gamepad support, etc.). For everyone who doesn't know Shadow Man, now is the time to get to know it. For everyone who already owns the orignal version (like me), this remaster is the perfect opportunity to experience this classic in a new exciting way. My only request to GOG is that everyone who purchases this remaster also gets the original version, just as they did with "Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition" and "Planescape Torment: Enhanced Edition".

The controls are a lot better - I've played it using mouse and keyboard and it felt so much more fluid than before. That definitely wasn't a viable option in the original. The graphics - dynamic lighting and shadows, as well as some neat post processing effects and better textures really add to the atmosphere! The sound - I feel like dialogue sounds clearer than in the original. The Shadow Gun sounds are now scaling with your power level and sounds as intended! And there's some great new additions to music. Cut content - three new levels, restored dialogue, etc.! Performance - no issues aside from the game sometimes taking long to launch (Win7, didn't happen on the last few launches) and a few glitches (non-game breaking, which are already being worked on) this was a really smooth launch. One hell of a job, considering they basically had to reconstruct the game in KEX Engine using PS1 source code and PC content. The negative: some content is still missing at the time of this review (one extra boss, one enemy type, I think) and a few cutscenes weren't triggered - but as far as I know the missing content is coming in with a patch, and the known issues are also being worked on.