My name is Garcia Hotspur. You stole my woman. Prepare to die.
The cover art for Shadows of the Damned includes a bit of text that reads, "A Suda51 Trip." When it comes to Suda51 titles, they are less like games and more like complete mind jobs, often eschewing traditional styles and tropes to create new ones that fit his twisted vision. Previous Suda51 games include Killer 7, a fantastic piece of crazy about assassins and more recently, No More Heroes. While Shadows of the Damned is no different from his previous stylistic offerings, the game is special because it is backed by some high profile individuals from the Japanese game industry. The game is a collaboration between Suda51, Shinji Makami (creator of Resident Evil) and musical virtuoso Akira Yamaoka. The result of these three minds working together is a bizarre "road movie" set in Hell and stars a character with the greatest name in video game history: Garcia Hotspur.
Garcia "Fucking" Hotspur is a demon hunter who loves his work. Accompanied by Johnson, a flaming skull version of Portal 2's Wheatley, the two have excelled at their craft. The problem is, Garcia is too good at his job and has incurred the wrath of the the high host of demons. When Garcia returns home, he finds his girlfriend Paula hanging by her neck from a ceiling fan. After a brief battle, Garcia is introduced to Fleming, the six-eyed lord of Hell who, as a means to punish Garcia for his war on demons, has taken Paula as his own and will inflict multiple and horrible deaths upon her. In order to bring her back, Garcia follows Fleming to Hell and must fight his way to his castle.
The game controls a lot like Resident Evil 4, so you'll be controlling Garcia from an over-the-shoulder view, blasting demons with a variety of weapons. At the press of a button, you can perform a 180 degree quick turn and you'll navigate levels by finding special keys to unlock paths that prevent you from advancing. There's an Alan Wake-style darkness mechanic that give enemies a shield that must be destroyed by the Light Shot. Garcia can only stand the darkness for so long, so you've got to be quick with the puzzles you'll be confronted within the dark world. Combat consists of using three weapons your demon pal can turn into. The basic form of Johnson is a pistol called The Boner (picking up the subtle innuendo yet?), a machine gun and a shotgun. These weapons can be upgraded by collecting Red Gems and placing them into slots that can increase ammo capacity, shorten reload time and increase damage. Picking up Blue Gems from in game bosses will add extra functionality to your weapons, such as bombs and more devastating attacks.
Shadows of the Damned is completely off the rails is so many different ways, it's hard to know where to start when it comes to talking about the zaniness. The game features a lot of film references and there's a sequence in the game that was obviously inspired by Evil Dead 2. Video game bosses are larger than life and even have their own back stories that are read by both Johnson and Garcia. While these stories put the brakes on the action, hearing the characters read and comment on the story can get pretty entertaining - especially since Garcia reads it a grade schooler. The writing in Shadows of the Damned is worth mentioning because while it is often prurient, it is also crisp, snappy and funny. Although Garcia sounds like a third tier Antonio Banderas sound-alike, he delivers a lot of funny one liners.
In a sequence set in Hell's red light district, Johnson calls a sex line and morphs into The Big Boner for a special - and incredibly frustrating (one could say it was...hard. Heh.) - sequence involving an assault by giant demons. Should one of the giants get too close, the death sequence involves Garcia getting picked up and thrown through a billboard in which his head is strategically placed in between a demon woman's thighs or breasts. Its funny the first time, but when you see it repeatedly after failing the sequence, it gets infuriating. There are several levels in which the game throws out the 3D view and switches into a 2D side scrolling shooter made from paper. Oh, and the loading screen that charts your progress through Hell resembles the screen from Ghouls 'n Ghosts. With Suda51 at the helm, you have to expect stuff like this to go down.
While the game has no problem showing off it's juvenile sense of humor, often the laughs are cut short when Garcia encounters Paula, usually moments before she suffers some horrible, gruesome fate. Throughout the course of the eight hour adventure, poor Paula will be split apart, drowned, chopped up and impaled. Paula's role in the game starts to get distressing and disturbing towards the end of the game and not even the sight of a 30 foot topless version of her dancing seductively wasn't enough to ease my discomfort - appreciated as it was.
Framing all this insanity is a fantastic score by Akira Yamaoka, the man behind the Silent Hill games. While he offers up some great ambient tracks, his melodies are top notch and he has once again partnered with singer Mary Elizabeth McGlynn to perform some vocal pieces. Just as the game is visually and mechanically all over the place, so is the music. It is not uncommon for some levels feature a lot of heavy industrial pieces and then immediately switch to flamenco guitar or something you'd hear at a carnival. Pre-ordered copies of the game came with a 12 track soundtrack sampler, but it hardly scratches the surface of what Yamaoka has done here. I've been a fan of his music for a long time, so I hope his work for Shadows of the Damned gets a proper release.
If you're a fan of Suda51 and his brand of off kilter madness, then by all means pick up Shadows of the Damned, especially since it has such big, industry leading names behind it. The game doesn't offer anything new or original in terms of mechanics, but it's sense of style and twisted, perverted humor help it to stand apart from similar games. The game does have it's fair share of frustrations, including instances in which death means having to sit through an unskippable cutscene - which is really lame, haven't we gotten better than this? - but once you get past these trouble spots the game is entertaining. As with previous Suda51 games, this is a title that you should experience because honestly, you rarely see anything like it.
