Shadows of The Damned - Hell raising entertainment!

With a name like Garcia Hotspur you either become a male prostitute or a badass demon hunter or in the case of eccentric developer, Suda 51’s latest game, Shadows of the Damned, a demon hunter who has a thing for dong jokes. While being a demon hunter has its perks, it does come with a few tiny perils that include eternal damnation for your girlfriend by the hands of a demon overlord. Nothing to sweat about really except for the fact that she’ll probably get dragged into the underworld only to die mercilessly over and over and over again in horrific ways. But hey, there’s nothing like a free meal right?

Are you having a "ball" of a time?

But being the stud that you are, you obviously dive in (quite literally) to rescue her from this terrible fate, aided in this noble endeavor by your Johnson. And yes, that is a clever play on words (remember the whole penis thing I told you about at the start) because by Johnson I do mean your floating skull companion voice by a British guy who can change into a plethora of weapons. After all, he is the “perfect tool for the job”. Har Har.

As juvenile as the pee pee jokes seem, they are actually quite funny and unlike Duke Nukem Forever where I cringed on every pun, I rather enjoyed the snide, sexual overtones in Shadows of the Damned. Instead of annoying the player, they really do drive home the cheesy B grade horror movie vibe Suda 51 was aiming at in the first place. Fusing the visual style of Quentin Tarantino’s Grindhouse with the over-the-top horror and humor of an Evil Dead, Shadows of the Damned is a homage of sorts to the days when horror movies actually amused you instead of just grossing you out.

BOOM! Headshot

The game takes place in Suda 51’s demented vision of the Underworld, a place that you’ll hopefully never visit. The game’s concept where the player is forced to watch his loved one die in horrible ways all the time is very bleak and I found the humor, as juvenile as it was balancing this out to a certain extent. Voice acting is intentionally cheesy, and I really wouldn’t have it any other way. Unlike Dante (from Dante’s Inferno) who just whined and whined like some emo kid tweaking off caffeine after suffering a similar fate, Garcia is a total badass who will make the best of a bad situation. And then make a dong joke out of it. That’s how he rolls.

Gameplay in SoTD is more or less your conventional third person shooter sans the cover system and regenerating health bar. The controls do feel a bit clunky at first but you’ll get used to them eventually. Shooting underworld’s minions will grant you white crystals that can used to purchase a bunch of stuff like upgrades for your tool, ammunition as well as some much needed health in the form of alcohol. Since this is the underworld, I guess the rules of the real world do not apply over here so drinking is actually good for your health over here. Fun times!