In my constant quest to stay in the cyberpunk mindset for this season of Channel 1d4, I searched Steam for an action oriented game with some sort of robotic twist.
I came across Shadow Warrior 2. This game had some positive and some not-so-positive reviews when it first came out. Since it was 40 bucks and all the DLC is free, I gave it a try. You guys, this game is rad. Devolver Digital has made a gem. Here's why:
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The setting is a world where a demon realm has collided with our own. Suddenly magic is real, and companies are incorporating it into their tech. It's set only a few years into the future, but the presence of magic has lead to technology being boosted to the point of cyber limbs and robot friends.
Sometimes when I'm playing Skyrim I want to unload on the monsters with big ol' firearms. Sometimes when the baddies are shooting at me, I want to zap them with magic. This is why I love games like Shadowrun and to a lesser degree Doom.
But Shadow Warrior does it better than any other game I've tried. It genuinely feels like I've got a teactic that can counter anything that's being thrown at me when I'm playing this game.
It's not all perfect, though. The weapon upgrade system is tedious, and the descriptions of powers and gear can be so glib that it gets a little grating. Overall, however, I found it was easy to ignore the annoying stuff and dive right in to the ballet of destruction in a world where demons and yakuza fight over rights to a goddess's celebrity sex tape.
If you dig any bio-punk movie, you'll get a kick out of some of the monsters and weapons in this game. For example there is a group of enemies that you'll have to fight a lot which end up having a Sonic-the-hedgehog "monsters in the robot" twist. There are also guns made of flesh and bone, straight out of Existenz.
Why is this a good thing, my non-punk-loving friends might be asking? Because it's different. I loved Halo, Deus Ex, Titanfall, even Call of Duty Infinite Warfare, but I cannot tell you how sick I am of seeing the same mildly futuristic assault rifle, or the shotgun that is unnecessarily sleek looking. In those games, every time the wordless hero pulls out a smooth semi-automatic pistol and fires off a few rounds as he runs to the next ammo dump to reload his real guns, I roll my eyes. They're fun, yeah, but I always feel myself wondering what was unique enough about the experience to justify buying the game.
Not so in Shadow Warrior 2. Beyond even Shadow Warrior 1, it has a unique feel to it's arms. And I give it this praise despite beating the game using only the most realistic looking guns they had. I just like that the option to go wacky with legendary guns was there.
There's just a whole lot of baddies. This game rips off the "legendary" system of MMOs, Borderlands and others, but it does it in a way that doesn't feel forced. What Shadow Warrior 2 calls "superior" enemies are tougher than others, but they aren't glaringly obvious on the battlefield. I tended not to notice I was fighting one until it failed to go down with the first couple of shots.
Due to the fantasy/sci-fi setting, I was used to regularly throwing down with yakuza, cyber soldiers working for the nefarious Zilla corporation, and eastern mythology inspired demons.
Is this a perfect game? Heck no. The lead character has a dumb name, the humor is sometimes pretty awkward, and the setup for the next entry into the series is so obvious it detracts a bit from the sense of completion in this game.
But is it a fun game? Oh my, yes. The mayhem you can unleash as you blast, dice, cast, and insult your way through enemies is delightful. The fact that they pay attention to little details like having multiple firing and reloading animations adds a layer of realism that keeps the player engaged. The multiplayer is easy to arrange and the replayabillity is high.
This game was panned when it first came out because of it's crude humor, and people were not wrong to point that out. But the crude humor is not so pervasive as the reviews would have you think, and sometimes yeah; it's actually pretty funny.
After playing through this game my official reccomendation is that you try it.