Gaming: Shadow Warrior

Well good news everyone Shadow Warrior is back and on next gen consoles! In glorious 1080p (on PS4) and not as glorious 900p on Xbox one, now I have no idea why its lower res on the XO and to be honest even at 900p its pretty spot on.

Lo Wang the character from the original makes a return and for those of you new to the game, Lo wang is an assassin working for a Japanese magnate who is sent to purchase an ancient katana sword from a collector named Miyazaki, the offer is 2 million dollars and Miyazaki isn`t happy with the deal and Lo Wang takes the sword by force, thus Wang is captured and escapes when demons attack the compound. He then allies himself with a demon called Hoji, who helps him through the game.

The voice overs and script is well written and full of classic one liners and puts its tongue firmly in its cheek.

Gameplay is brilliant and harks back to the good old days of melee combat with Wang fighting his way through different levels and kicking bottoms big style. Wangs signature weapon is of course the sword but he picks up all manner of kick ass weapons as the game develops and the action is fast and furious just like the original, there are moments of wandering around looking for things but the action is fairly relentless and the enemies come thick and fast.

Upgrades are easy to gain and Wang has plenty of different options available including powers and weapon upgrades that come in handy, you will gain Karma points for inventive use of your weapons and skills during a fight so don`t just stick to one weapon or technique.

Upgrades are purchased with money that you pick up as you go, you can also pick up additional weapons and bullets etc as you progress.

You can heal yourself to an extent (again a bit tricky when being attacked) but if you run away it replenishes fairly quickly.

The music is excellent and flows with the game giving it loads of atmosphere.

Graphics are superb and the levels look great, nice and clean and uncluttered it gives the game that retro feel.

Controls are pretty straight forward but I did find some of the special moves a bit of a challenge especially during the heat of battle so beware, to be honest it’s much more fun mowing down the bad guys with a couple of big ass guns than messing about trying to perform some special move.

Summary

Shadow Warrior does exactly what you expect of it there’s no fancy story or overly complex graphics it’s all fairly basic and simple in its design and that is what makes this such an awesome game, it’s a brilliant re boot of a classic game and worth a play. I’m going to stick my neck out on this one and say it’s one of the best games this year.

Shadow Warrior

Developer: Flying Wild Hog

Publisher: Devolver Digital

Xbox One

Playstation 4

Genre: FPS

Release Date: 24th October 2014

Graphics: 5/5

Gameplay: 5/5

Story: 5/5

Overall: 5/5