Garcia F******* Hotspur.
You have to give EA a lot of credit these days providing publishing support for a new IP in a overly saturated sequel industry but Shadows does a good job of creating a possible franchise. The game starts out when Demon Hunter Garcia Hotspur's girlfriend has been kidnapped by the lord of demons, and he hastily jumps down the portal of darkness to get her back. Accompanied by your former demon pal, yet able to transform into guns and a torch Johnson. You are more than well equipped to dive into the Underwold to get her back.
As a 3rd person shooter Shadows will be compared to RE4 from Mikami and Dead Space somewhat. The shooting mechanics are solid and the gunplay feels satisfying especially after each upgrade your weapons get from blue gems. Johnson can transform into three types of guns, pistol, smg, and shotgun. The blue gem upgrades which drop from bosses add different effects like charge bombs, multiple shots, etc. Red gems which you find scattered around act as stat boosters. Garcia is quite a bit more agile though than Leon S. Kennedy or Isaac Clarke. He has a nifty dodge ability that is great to use but sometimes makes him a tad bit overpowered because in most circumstances he is invulnerable during the animation of the dodge. Plus you can move while shooting.
The enemies you encounter are quite varied, often times the game will change things up between boss fights by adding in mid bosses, etc. Some enemies require you to use a light shot to dispel darkness around them so you can damage them, or you can use it to stun them. The boss fights are pretty fun, they each have their own unique personality from a giant bird beast to a giant.... cow headed thing, to grim reapers, they have flair and also a nifty back story. Before each boss you will find a book where either Johnson or Garcia will read aloud. The writing and voice acting for these parts is hysterical and really plays off on the chemistry between the two, especially when Garcia can't pronounce complicated word very well. The story of the Stinky Crow was my personal favorite and hilarious.
While the game world itself doesn't look absolutely stunning the animations are very fluid and stylistic. Each time you transform Johnson you get a cool Tron like digitized effect around the gun, and head shots provide stylistic zoomed in views of blood spewing. The game is pretty good graphically on a technically level but I really can't complain about the technical level of graphics these days with consoles that are 5+ years older. The environments still convey a good amount of atmosphere to be like the Underworld.
Shadows will take you through some truly bizarre settings on your journey, ranging from what looks like an Eastern European village, to traversing a woman's breast. The game takes a break from the 3rd person action mid way through the game for a short turret like sequence to a retro styled side scroller schmup that has sound effects ripped straight from The Three Stooges. While I personally didn't like the schmup sequences the audio was pretty interesting. The pacing is extremely well executed, every time I was ready to move on I was at the next stage or a boss battle. Most stages will take around 20-30 minutes for most people to complete. You also get some light puzzle mechanics from time to time but these moments are very small in comparison to the rest of the game. There are posters scattered throughout which provide a pretty funny commentary, and others some provide a pretty big part of the back story to Shadows.
The music created by Akira Yamoaka of Silent Hill is amazing and if your a fan of Silent Hill's soundtrack you will love the music here. The sound effects are great other than the creepy leather stretching sound Garcia makes when he moves around.
The setting and the tone of the game is very well done. While I ended up being kind of annoyed with Garcia at first he kind of grew on me. Ya he has some lame jokes he says too much but sometimes he shines. He honestly cares about his girlfriend Paula and you will see her go through some pretty messed up stuff. The real bright side is his conversations with Johnson, asking why demons love strawberries or talking about how Garcia met his girl Paula, these moments give a real bromance quality to the game which is pretty funny. It's like watching Beverly Hills Cop sometimes except with a flaming skull.
Shadows is raunchy but has some soul to it. The shooting is enjoyable, has a great feel to it and it is probably quite unlike what most of you have played. I did not like Garcia very much at first but by the end of the game, he reminded me of Dante. When I started playing I did not want to stop cause I wanted to see what would happen next. While Shadows is short (I completed the game at around 8 hours on normal) it's a fun ride. I suggest picking it up if your a fan of third person shooters and something that is a tad bit different.
