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Do you like Borderlands, but feel like it needs more dick jokes, ninjas and gore?
Shadow Warrior 2 may just be your cup of tea. Going by my rather long-winded review (my first piece for this site way back in the ancient times of “not even two months ago”), it certainly was mine.
2016 was a year of changes for first person shooters. DOOM went back to its roots, Call of Duty went to space, Titanfall 2 had an excellent campaign and Battlefield traveled back in time by 100 years. While not quite the household name that most of these franchises are, Shadow Warrior was fully on board the alteration express. Where the 2013 reboot was a fairly straight-forward, linear shooter with a surprisingly engaging lore and plot, Shadow Warrior 2 went for a procedurally-generated series of encounters in a small number of repeated basic levels with slight alterations, with the player based out of a hub area.
This radical alteration of the formula that attracted players like me was a gamble, but it mostly pays off. The sequel relies heavily on its looter-shooter elements to keep the player engaged over the course of its longer playtime (the second game took me nearly twice as long to complete as the first, completing all of the side missions), and I believe the game succeeds because despite the switch to procedural generation for certain things it still relies on base content that is handcrafted by the developers.
For instance, every weapon in the game is unique, most of them are found in the world dropped by powerful enemies or found in chests, and the rest are bought at a shop. The procedural generation comes in with the upgrades, which are dropped in overwhelming abundance and change both the mechanical properties of weapons (fire rate, pellet spread for shotguns, accuracy, etc.) and their magical/elemental abilities. It is with these upgrades that your swords, guns and bows really become your own; crafting a weapon for every situation and enemy type is one of the most enjoyable parts of the game, second only perhaps to actually using them.
Much like its fellow retro-revival DOOM, Shadow Warrior 2 is all about fast-paced, brutal combat against hordes of diverse foes, each with their own attack patterns and weaknesses. The varied elemental vulnerabilities and attributes of your weapons mean the game encourages you to shake things up, juggling weapons and powers with one finger always on the dodge button. As I stated in my review, there is a certain serenity that you can reach as you dash in and out of clusters of foes, your sword slicing through in a blur and leaving severed limbs and gore in their wake before you draw your trusty sidearm and drop the last few enemies with lethal headshots.
And the best part? You can do all of this with up to three of your friends! Though that may interfere with one of my favorite things to do, which is to blast music to accompany the carnage (I recommend the work of Le Castle Vania for your combat tracks). Not only does this make the action even more awesome, it also drowns out the nagging of Kamiko, this game’s “voice in your head” character. Justified as her disgust with protagonist Lo Wang is most of the time, it can be a real drag in some spots, so feel free to drop the bass on those conversations.
So, whether you’re done with DOOM and looking for another fix or just a shooter junkie, there’s plenty to love with Shadow Warrior 2. Buy it this holiday season, and why not get another copy or three for your friends so you can slay together?
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