Shadowman: 2nd Coming
Score: 87% ESRB: Mature Publisher: Acclaim Developer: Acclaim Media: DVD/1 Players: 1 Genre: Miscellaneous
Graphics & Sound: There have been a lot of third person shooters coming out lately, but Shadowman: 2nd Coming is one of the better looking ones. The game has a very dark feel throughout to accompany the dark storyline. Lighting is very key in this game and it really sets the mood. While there are a lot of shadows, there is one constant light - your character's. Being that he is dead, you are able to see through his ribcage to his glowing blue heart. Weird, yes, but it's a very cool effect. Other graphical flairs include robust and varied textures and realistic water reflections. Shadowman: 2nd Coming is one of those few games that come along and decide to push the bounds of the Mature rating. The way it does this is through horrendously violent graphics. I'm not even sure if I can say the kinds of things that go on in this game. Whatever your stance is on violence in videogames, you would have to agree that the graphics of Shadowman: 2nd Coming do a terrific job of getting the violence across. While the game looks great, there are a few problems. For one, the character animations aren't quite up to par of other games. Time to use your imagination. Picture the Tin Man on crack jerkily walking around really fast with a gun. That's you. If you haven't seen the Tin Man on crack, it's pretty ugly. Not only is there a lot of voice acting in Shadowman: 2nd Coming, but it is also of superb quality. All of the voices are clear and recorded very nicely, and they also fit the characters, which is the most important. The content, however isn't quite as clean as the voice acting itself. In the opening video, I was treated to more than a few harsh words, and by the fourth level I had heard every expletive that I knew. I wasn't really offended, but surprised that a videogame could use some of the things that Shadowman: 2nd Coming did. Don't play this one with your little sister in the room. Other than that, the sound effects were also nicely done, but the soundtrack was less than memorable.
Gameplay: When faced with the pressing question of First or Third Person shooter, I usually plead the first, simply because that's what I have always played. Be that as it may, I didn't have a hard time getting into Shadowman: 2nd Coming. The game had a solid game engine with good camera work. Any time I rotated the camera against the wall, instead of the camera being smashed up against the character, the wall turned transparent. Nice. Mostly the gameplay consisted of two elements: puzzle solving and fighting. While the puzzles were, for the most part, fun and challenging, the fighting was nothing more than mindless button mashing. Along the way you find new weapons, but they are all basically the same. One of the most difficult things to get used to is the item switching system. In the pause menu, you are able to assign different items to each of the shoulder buttons. When you exit the menu and start playing, things get more complicated. Pushing one of the L or R buttons puts that item into your hand. This doesn't necessarily mean that pushing that button again will empty your hands. Instead you will switch to the item that is on the other button on the same side of the controller. For example, if the Ax is on L1 and the pistol is on L2, when you have the Ax in your hand, pushing L1 will give you the pistol. Why? I don't know. If you want to empty your hands, it turns out that you have to go back into the menu and empty one of the slots. And it's not like you can go through the game without emptying your hands. It took me about twenty minutes to figure out that I couldn't grab a rope
Difficulty: The internet has opened up new windows of information for society. Just think, within a few clicks anyone can find live doppler radar images for their area, transfer funds between bank accounts or figure out how to beat a game. Thank God for the net - without it I would never have been able to even start a new file of Shadowman: 2nd Coming. This game is hard. That is okay though because it is obviously aimed at the mature audience. You would be hard pressed to get through this game without help of some sort. That being said, don't buy this game unless you are up for a challenge. Most of the difficulty comes from not knowing what to do rather than having to get through sticky situations like in Metal Gear Solid 2.
Game Mechanics: Setting up the controller for Shadowman: 2nd Coming was one of the hardest tasks that I had undertaken in about a year (I have yet to go to college). You use the two sticks for movement, but setting them up the way that you like is quite hard. I wanted to move in the same way as in Halo for the Xbox- left stick for forward/ backward and strafing, and right stick for rotating and looking. After trying all of the configurations that I could, I still wasn't happy and I had to change my gaming habits. When it comes to control, I'm that old guy sitting on the porch yelling at kids - I don't like change. Oh, and I also don't like long file saving times either. Shadowman: 2nd Coming has some of the longest. I found myself saying 'I can probably wait another thirty minutes without dying before I have to save.' I like to save anytime I think I might be in danger of dying, but I was curbing that practice because it took so long, and there were a few times I had to pay for it.
-Joe Guys, GameVortex Communications AKA Joe Labani
Project Eden Silent Scope 2: Dark Silhouette