The original Shadow Man was a game I wasn't party to, but had heard many good things, so looked forward to this sequel.
You take on the role of Shadow Man, aka Mike LeRoi, in a game which has you
battling a group of demons known as the Grigori. If you die and they win, they
will raise Asmodeus from The Pit and humanity will be destroyed in an unimaginable
cataclysmic event. I think that sounds like bad things will happen.
What can you do to stop them? Well, if zombies get in your way you can shoot
them with the implements of destruction that you collect in the game, starting
with a nail gun, or thump them bare-fisted. While it looks good with a
dark, eerie atmosphere and, if the camera gets up close to you, your beating
heart looks very cool indeed, you'll come across the zombies early on and
that's where the disappointment begins, since a bit of flailing of left and
right hooks will quickly demolish them, sometimes cracking apart into several
pieces.
The sound isn't a great deal to shout about, either. An ambient tune plays
in the background, but it doesn't really seem to fit in with this game. Sound
FX of shooting or thumping someone is incredibly lacklustre too.
The movement of Mike seems a little bit stilted at times when you need to
turn round while moving forward because he stays facing forward and as well
as not appearing to turn round the control just doesn't feel right. Programmers
facing this dilemma should take a look at
Grand Theft Auto 3
for how to avoid this experience and get it right. On the plus side, though,
you can swap the analogue joystick controls over in the set-up menu, which
helps both left- and right-handed gamers.
As the game progresses, you collect other items and documents along the way
which will aid you in your quest, but it's all done in a very linear fashion.
You can go exploring a little in some rooms, but that's mainly just to defeat
a few tertiary enemies and pick up power-ups.
For the most part, it's all been done before and if you're going to have the
player trudging down dark alleyway after dark alleyway, you need to create
an atmosphere. If you want to make the player scared by the approaching zombies
then do something that'll make them shit themselves at the first opportunity.
Games such as the first Resident Evil and
Thief 2: The Metal Age
did that for me, but it's a rarely-repeated experience.
GRAPHICS SOUND EFFECTS AND MUSIC PLAYABILITY ORIGINALITY ENJOYMENT
As of April 2009, Blu-rays and DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TH-37PX80B
37" Plasma TV with a Sony BDP-1500 Blu-ray player and played through a Yamaha DSP-AX820 amplifier.
PC games reviewed by the editor are on:
Since Jan 2011: Intel Quad Core Dell XPS 8100, i7 CPU 860 @ 2.80Ghz, 8Gb RAM, nVidia GeForce GTS 240, Windows 7
Since Nov 2005: Intel Pentium D 830 3.0Ghz, 1Gb RAM, 128Mb nVidia GeForce 6700XL, Windows XP
Since Aug 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.66Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb GeForce4 MX440 graphics, Windows XP
Since May 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.6Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb ATI Radeon 9600TX graphics, Windows XP
Since Jun 2002: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, 64Mb ATI Radeon 8500LE
Since May 2000: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, Voodoo 3 3000 AGP
The original Shadow Man was a game I wasn't party to, but had heard many good things, so looked forward to this sequel.
The sound isn't a great deal to shout about, either. An ambient tune plays
in the background, but it doesn't really seem to fit in with this game. Sound
FX of shooting or thumping someone is incredibly lacklustre too.
As the game progresses, you collect other items and documents along the way
which will aid you in your quest, but it's all done in a very linear fashion.
You can go exploring a little in some rooms, but that's mainly just to defeat
a few tertiary enemies and pick up power-ups.
