The Blogtastic Blogfest That Is Getmeoutofthis.net!

Shadows of the Damned is a damn fine game, and honestly, it confuses me that it’s gotten so little press. Here you have one of the kings of ridiculous Japanese bullshit, Suda 51, joining forces with the guy who made Resident Evil 4 to create a Suda 51 game that is as silly and awesome as Suda does, but is actually fairly enjoyable to play. And they did it. That’s exactly what Shadows of the Damned is.

It’s also a game where your main weapon is called the Boner, which upgrades into the Hot Boner, which you then use to shoot a “sticky Hot Boner payload.” So, you know, there’s that.

Basically, you’ve got the main character, Garcia Fucking Hotspur. (Yes, his middle name is “Fucking.”) He’s a demon hunter, and he’s off doing his thing, but unfortunately all his demon hunting pisses off Fleming, the main underworld dude. So he kidnaps Garcia’s hot girlfriend, and Garcia has to go to Hell to save her and shoot like a million dudes.

The game basically controls like an improved RE4 or 5. You can shoot while moving, but it really doesn’t affect combat THAT much, as you can’t aim worth shit while you’re aiming and moving so it’s to your benefit to stand still. You get three weapons, a pistol (the Boner I was speaking of), a machine gun (the Teether), and a shotgun (the Skullcussioner). They upgrade themselves throughout the game, with the Teether eventually becoming The Dentist and having homing shots, and the Skullcussioner becoming the Skullblaster and letting you shoot a gigantic grenade skull, but those are basically your weapons. But that’s okay. Those are basically the weapons you’d be using in a game like this anyway! Plus, you still have some upgrade fun with the red gems you get, which you can use to upgrade each weapon how you see fit, so the game isn’t completely devoid of getting better weaponry.

Really, though, the game is sold by the tone the game sets. It makes terrible, terrible dick jokes all the way through, but not only do you believe these are the sorts of people who would be making such terrible jokes but you also feel like they’re just incredibly appropriate for running through this version of hell. Everyone isn’t spouting out jokes. You totally believe in them saying what they’re saying. It’s awesome that way.
The reason you buy it is because the voice actors for Garcia and Johnson, the talking skull who becomes all your weaponry, are both fantastic. They sell every fucking ridiculous line. Listening to them is the key joy of the game. There are even these children’s storybooks about the origins the bosses, and they read them out loud to each other, and comment on them. There’s no action during these. They’re just reading. But it says so much about both characters and they’re so entertaining, you don’t even care that you’re listening to a storybook. (And if you do care, they are completely optional.) Seriously, hearing Garcia chuckle at the parts where people get killed, because that’s the funny part, is completely accurate to his character and grin-inducing.

There are some parts of the game involving the damaging darkness mechanic that get a bit annoying, sure. I’m also really annoyed at the achievements. There are achievements for getting certain numbers of kills with each version of each gun, but in the beginning, they’re all pretty awful, and it makes sense to stick with the Boner. Since you can’t downgrade them, you’re just shit out of luck. It also doesn’t do the thing where it gives you the lower difficulty achievements for beating it on higher settings, so while I beat it on Normal, I’d have to beat it again on Easy to get that achievement. None of these are a good reason to keep yourself from playing a fun and funny game. It’s entertaining and kept a smile on my face the whole time. Suda deserves your money for his brand of crazy. If you like RE4 and penises at all, you should give this a go.