Suda 51 Finally Delivers
Suda 51, for me, has been the most over-rated producer out there. Killer 7 was an abjectly abysmal game with horrific gameplay but odd visuals. No More Heroes were substantially better games, but they were relentlessly redundant. They did get better (the sequel was way more playable than the original), but they weren't terribly awesome games. So, I had a bit of concern when I decided to give this game a chance.
...and Suda 51, for the first time, actually made a good game. I don't think it's the great game Suda will eventually put out, but it is a very good game and one quite worth the time to play.
You are Garcia Hotspur, which is either the greatest name in gaming history...or painfully retarded. You are a demon hunter and you are allied with your good friend, the former demon Johnson. A six-eyed demon comes to visit the day your girlfriend kills herself. He drags her to Hell and you follow him down to liberate her. You must fight through 5 worlds of Hell, combating both a collection of demons and the darkness to find your dead love.
I will go ahead and warn you --- the game is LADEN with dick jokes. If you're not a fan of erectile humor, you might not enjoy a lot of the game. Johnson can turn into such weapons as the Boner, the Hot Boner, and the Big Boner. Fortunately, the game doesn't simply wallow in that stuff. The dick jokes are impossible to miss, but there is a lot more to this package (snicker) than just dick jokes. The game is mature in rating only. You get nudity (in one area, you must run across the topless body of a woman) and, naturally, violence --- complete with slow-motion headshot explosions.
The enemies are enjoyable to fight and your collection of weapons are a blast to use. You have your Boner...and other weapons as well. The Dentist line of weapons use demon teeth as their ammo and serve as machine guns. You also have the ability to use a shotgun that ends up becoming, in my experience, the most powerful gun in the game.
The closest game to this in terms of control would be Resident Evil 4/5. You can move in third person and then bring up your weapon to fire --- except you have the ability to move while wielding your gun, an improvement Resident Evil has yet to pull off. You move quickly and efficiently and the game seldom seems to lag. One of the cooler aspects of the game is the use of the darkness, which is a shadow that will slowly kill you until you either escape it or generate some light to remove it. It leads to some basic puzzles that do serve as a nice break from the action.
The game's best part are the boss battles. The boss fights are brilliantly executed. They aren't easy by any means, but once you figure out how to attack the boss, they are doable. You seldom will sit there for a while just thinking "What the heck do I do?", but knowing what to do and actually DOING it aren't the same thing. Sadly, the final boss is actually rather easy (the penultimate boss, mind you, is beast to deal with) but it is the only issue I have with the boss fights. These are some of the most enjoyable battles in games in a long while.
Shadows of the Damned definitely warrants your attention. Some flaws here and there (why the heck aren't the achievements/trophies for finishing the game at different difficulties not stackable?) but, overall, a really solid affair. Again, I still think Suda does have a great game in his future and this isn't it, but this is the first time he's actually produced a really fun game.
