2013's Shadow Warrior remake/reboot/whatever game was alright. It was aggressively average and overstayed its welcome somewhat, but there wasn't anything massively wrong with it.
When the sequel was pending there was some excitement over it being the next big thing in the old-school shooter revival. Then everyone got very, very quiet about it the second it came out. Now I see why. This game is fucking dull.
So how the hell did they screw up this badly?
That's a rhetorical question. I know exactly how they did it. They did it up by holding SW2's head under a pool of the concentrated mediocrity that is Borderlands.
Numbers everywhere. Numbers as far as the eye can see. You shoot damage numbers at the enemy health numbers so they bleed numbers. Then they drop numbers that you can pick up to make your numbers a bit better.
It uses a similar RNG loot system, so nothing you find will ever be exciting or unique. "Ohh boy, this upgrade gives my gun 4.2% toxic damage! I can't wait to fuck around in my inventory to replace the previous upgrade that only gave 3.9% toxic damage! Fun!" You'll find a few that actually change the way a weapon behaves, but for every one of those there are 50 boring +3 DPS junk upgrades clogging your inventory.
The level layouts are randomly generated. So naturally everything looks the same. No single area is distinguishable or memorable. It all just blends together in a blur of repeated assets and Japanese imagery.
It's annoyingly easy to get stuck on terrain, which is fatal in a game largely focused on mobility. The majority of my deaths were caused by getting stuck on jagged seams or under ledges that refused to be climbed.
The enemies are a visual mess, no uniting theme or distinctive designs, all thrown together without rhyme or reason. Not that I could fucking see them through the clouds of numbers. Maybe that's what they were counting on. I actually found myself wanting to fight the regular humans over the demons and what I think was supposed to be mutated wildlife.
The game's sole bright point is, bizarrely enough, the characters and dialogue. Lo Wang is essentially Duke Nukem if he was Japanese and not shit. His juvenile and self-aware attempts to sound like a badass inevitably make him seem like a heavily armed dork instead and the result is surprisingly charming. It quickly became the only thing keeping me playing, but it just wasn't worth chewing through the monotonous numerical slog of the gameplay.
When the sequel was pending there was some excitement over it being the next big thing in the old-school shooter revival. Then everyone got very, very quiet about it the second it came out. Now I see why. This game is fucking dull.
So how the hell did they screw up this badly?
That's a rhetorical question. I know exactly how they did it. They did it up by holding SW2's head under a pool of the concentrated mediocrity that is Borderlands.
Numbers everywhere. Numbers as far as the eye can see. You shoot damage numbers at the enemy health numbers so they bleed numbers. Then they drop numbers that you can pick up to make your numbers a bit better.
It uses a similar RNG loot system, so nothing you find will ever be exciting or unique. "Ohh boy, this upgrade gives my gun 4.2% toxic damage! I can't wait to fuck around in my inventory to replace the previous upgrade that only gave 3.9% toxic damage! Fun!" You'll find a few that actually change the way a weapon behaves, but for every one of those there are 50 boring +3 DPS junk upgrades clogging your inventory.
The level layouts are randomly generated. So naturally everything looks the same. No single area is distinguishable or memorable. It all just blends together in a blur of repeated assets and Japanese imagery.
It's annoyingly easy to get stuck on terrain, which is fatal in a game largely focused on mobility. The majority of my deaths were caused by getting stuck on jagged seams or under ledges that refused to be climbed.
The enemies are a visual mess, no uniting theme or distinctive designs, all thrown together without rhyme or reason. Not that I could fucking see them through the clouds of numbers. Maybe that's what they were counting on. I actually found myself wanting to fight the regular humans over the demons and what I think was supposed to be mutated wildlife.
The game's sole bright point is, bizarrely enough, the characters and dialogue. Lo Wang is essentially Duke Nukem if he was Japanese and not shit. His juvenile and self-aware attempts to sound like a badass inevitably make him seem like a heavily armed dork instead and the result is surprisingly charming. It quickly became the only thing keeping me playing, but it just wasn't worth chewing through the monotonous numerical slog of the gameplay.
