Taste This! The "Shadows of the Damned" Review

When I first heard of this game, my first thought was, Okay... it looks boring. Then, I heard about the pedigree behind it. Shinji Mikami. Okay, Resident Evil... sure. Akira Yamaoka. Holy crap, they're the pieces of bread for a potential God Sandwich. Suda 51. There's your proof that God is real. How could you go wrong with a team of geniuses? One created a genre of games, one made the most atmospheric horror soundtracks, and the last one made some of the best games no one played. How could I miss this, now?

Thankfully, Shadows of the Damned is a surprise in itself. The story is a retelling of Dante's Inferno, without the Templars. You play as Garcia Hotspur, a demon hunter, whose girlfriend, Paula, is kidnapped by Sat-- I mean, Flemming, the devil. Teamed up with former demon, Johnson, who can turn into several weapons, Garcia must travel through Hell to save his "angel" from an eternity of torture and deaths. What could easily have been a cliche plot is played in a grindhouse style, complete with over the top gore and weapons.

Yes, Johnson, your gun, has three states: "Skullfest" the shotgun, "Teether" the machine gun, and the pistol. Your pistol is called the "Boner." And they shoot skulls, teeth, and bones. Helping along the way is demidemon Christopher, who looks like something from Pan's Labyrinth. The aesthetic of the game is both stunning and creepy. The demons are mostly skinless people or armored versions of that, but the bosses are where the true bizarre factor is. True to Suda 51, the bosses have weakpoints that glow, but they're done in a way that isn't glaringly painful.

The clear innovation the game has isn't the story, but the duality of light and dark. Johnson has a light shot that can stun enemies that have not been in the dark, and make enemies that came out of the dark vulnerable. It can also light dark areas by shooting at Goat Heads before the dark does damage to Garcia. Yet, some enemies need to be shot in the dark, forcing you to create strategies for boss battles, and even puzzles. As challenging as this is at times, you'll have an abundance of beer, sake, and absinthe to heal you. Yes, alcohol heals you in hell...

The gameplay has a learning curve, mainly because of the somewhat clunky aiming controls. It's easy to hit an enemy the first time, but then they move and you have to move your gun just enough, which can be a pain at times. The rest of the controls, including a dodge that you can use at anytime, work beautifully, especially in the side scrolling shooter parts that are designed like a scrapbook fairytale. The only section of the game that brought the flow of the play, and the story, down was "The Big Boner," in which you call a phone sex line to make your pistol bigger, and then play a level where you can't move, switching directions to kill giant demons with your "Big Boner," while saying "Taste my Big Boner!"

The story for the game doesn't take a lot of turns, but it doesn't really need to. The writing is clever and vulgar, which is expected from a grindhouse type game or movie. At the same time, it pokes fun at the genre, and itself. Bosses are introduced by Fairy Tale books that describe how they became demons in a ridiculous fashion ("He fell with a 'splort!' Hee hee... 'Splort!'") Johnson censors his own language, or shouts out curse words. The game goes forward with its tongue firmly jammed in its own cheek. Yet, it doesn't stop it from being unnerving as well. This is partly credited to Akira Yamaoka's sound work, and the overall feel of the environment. I mean, you shove brains, eyes, and strawberries into the mouths of creepy disembodied baby faces to open the doors they guard, and they laugh as they let you through... looking creepy as hell.

Shadows of the Damned is not a game for the weak stomached, but is a trip worth taking. While not Suda 51's most bizarre game, the effort between him, Yamaoka, and Mikami is a hell of a combination. Possibly one of the most original games written lately, ironically, figuring it's a retelling of Dante's Inferno, it is well worth a playthrough... or two.

Overall: A-

+ Fun Grindhouse setting
+ Good Story
+ Fun Gameplay
+ Good Movement Controls
+ Witty writing and design
- With a mindless section
- Bad aiming controls
+ Actually disturbing vision of hell and moving atmosphere!