Garcia "Effing" Hotspur and The Shadows of the Damned

There is a decent chance you've never heard of this game and there is a very good chance you haven't played it. The game sold horribly and had no advertising at all. It's made by a small company who have made other commercial failures in the past that have been critically successful and Shadows of the Damned fits right into that category.

The thing is, this could be a very popular game if people gave it a chance. Sure, the story and dialogue is waaaay out there but it's genuinely hilarious although a bit creepy at times, and the gameplay could easily be mistaken for Resident Evil 4 at first glance. The over the shoulder camera and aiming are right out of Capcom's horror series but that's where the comparison's end. Where Resident Evil is sort of slow and clunky, Shadows of the Damned is fast paced and slick. Taking down hordes of demons with a multitude of insane demonic weapons is (excuse the pun here) fun as hell.

I'm going to stop there. I could sit here and write up a few paragraphs about the gameplay and story and graphics and music but it won't make a difference. This isn't the kind of game that can really be described by a block of text. Look, everything about this game is ridiculous and over the top, from the giant demons to the endless sexual innuendo. It's game that really needs to be played to be appreciated. Some people are going to absolutely hate everything about this game that I think makes it great. Hating this game isn't wrong, in fact, I could completely understand it. Some people can't appreciate good demon sex humor as much as I can. If you can though, this game is aces because when you look past all of that over the top humor there is a good game underneath. It's not a big named title by a big named developer and that will just about always mean a game will sell like crap, but Shadows of the Damned deserves your time. It's too good of a game to be relegated to the bargain bin (although that's what will happen) so when you see it for $10 make sure you buy it. You won't regret the decision.