SHANK

After trying to play Dragon Age again, I decided that I'd rather place my horned hat in a field, steal a plane mid-flight, play anything by Miley Cyrus over the loud speakers at full volume with a church choir singing the words from Twilight, find the field, jump out of the plane and have my horned hat impale me. If this didn't kill me I would have repeated the process until it did.

So there will be no review of Dragon Age, but if you do want an impression of what I thought of it see above or go here.

However Odin and Playstation Plus were looking down on me that day, and my PS3 had downloaded an unlikely looking demo called 'SHANK'.

After finishing the first level, and LOVING it, I paid the twenty dollars to get the rest of the game. It ended up giving me about 5 or more hours of enjoyable game play, which is 5 more hours of enjoyable game play than Dragon Age gave me.

I had paid five times the amount of SHANK for Dragon Age. Shouldn't it logically be five times better? Five times more awesome? Five times less a waste of my life?

Sadly games do not follow a mathematical equation of price to excellence. Demon's Souls, for instance, was only 70 dollars as a new release. Not only did I give it an excellent score, I have bestowed upon it the honour of an involved replay. I say involved in italics because Vikings are a passionate people. If we did not feel strongly about our hats, culture, looting, maiming and pillaging, then we would simply be for-profit murderers in funny head gear. So I say involved, I mean involved. Priest in a child smuggling ring involved.

Onto Shank.



Shank has the same storyline as Kill Bill, in that he was betrayed by his gang-leader and his lover got killed by the gang made up of a variety of differently skilled individuals and they tried to kill him but he lived and they are SUPER SURPRISED to see him alive. Lots of killing ensues.

Even though I recently commented on originality and how it's lacking, I was surprised that I still thoroughly enjoyed the characters and plot development. Probably more surprised than the gang members were of finding out about shanks apparent good health (in that he was moving and breathing). The voice-acting was really good which I didn't expect from a game that was one fifth the price of the game that gave me the 'evil guy' voice. As well as that the dialogue and voices perfectly suiting the roles of their respective characters. Cliche, but well done. Like a steak. Bison steak, topped with a mushroom cream sauce. Served to me by a buxom waitress. But yes, voice-acting. And steak.

Game progression was a big part of what made the story enjoyable. For instance, some boss battles were at the start of the level and, in turn, introduced the types of enemies you would be versing next, rather than vice versa. If you don't understand that means I have to explain, and there was a good reason I turned down the chance to be Chair of Viking University. One is that I am not furniture, and never will be, and the second is that explaining is for mortals.

Here's an example anyway: if I'm in a level where the majority of my time is spent hacking the beaks off bird enemies then it is more than likely the boss of that particular level will be a giant bird. Like an albatross. Done in a rich peppercorn sauce on a pile of grilled eggplant. Served by a naked and buxom waitress. But yes, giant albatross, example and naked waitress.

This breaks up the games flow so that you don't settle into a routine of hack and slash, hack and slash, try to figure out how to beat the boss, beat the boss, FMV, hack and slash, hack and slash etc.

Another INGENIOUS method that's been used to break up the flow is the in game movies that appear at the top of the screen as you're still playing. It gives the impression that things are still in motion behind the scenes and that the big picture is being revealed at the same pace as you're playing it. So much passion, so many italics.

The game play defecates all over Dragon Age. It's smooth and quick and fun. Not press X and wait ten years for your character to bludgeon an enemy to death with a blade. Note, I've said bludgeon and blade in relation to one another. The only person I know that has successfully bludgeoned a person to death with a blade was me, and I was at least using the flat of the sword. And the victim in question had eaten my SANDWICH! (note the extra passion).

For starters, Shank has a great array of weaponry. Starting out with knives, a chainsaw and twin handguns, he moves onto using twin machetes, a shotgun, uzi, chains and a katana. Each of the weapons has their own range and fighting style and damage, and most importantly, their own individual animation for specialised kills.

Before I move onto the specialised kills, the great thing about this array of weaponry is that it's quick and simple to switch between them, which means you don't have to fuck around to deal with situations that require different weapons. If anyone remembers the difference between Devil May Cry 1 where you couldn't switch quickly and Devil May Cry 3 where you could, you'll remember the sense of freedom in dealing with different situations as well as the added enjoyment of breaking up what can quickly become a monotonous task of killing enemies in the same way.

The specialised ways of killing enemies are AWESOME. Against your regular enemies you can grapple them and then use any of the ten or so weapons to make them feel pain or feel dead (if dead is a feeling). The Katana is my favourite in this instance as the grapple leads to an assisted Hari Kiri (once again, I'm not furniture and very busy, use google for that one).

There is also the lunge, where Shank will leap halfway across the screen, pin an enemy down and proceed to stab their bodies until they become lifeless corpses with a Viking style efficiency.

Because the switching between weapons, attacks and different combos are so smooth, simple and above all, quick, this game feels incredibly fast-paced. And dying? Don't worry about it. Shank is one of the few games I have played that doesn't make dying as frustrating as polishing a dent out of your helmet. You die, you immediately start at your last checkpoint. No screen emphasising an already obvious fact that you lost, or asking you to re-load, or any other such time wasting crap.

This game also has something I haven't seen since Devil May Cry. He wields two handguns, so they've given him the ability to shoot in TWO DIFFERENT DIRECTIONS! Amazing! And if DMC and Shank can do it, WHY CAN'T YOU OTHER GAMES? IS IT SO HARD!?

The boss battles hold the only real problem I have with the game. While finding out how to beat the bosses is fun and challenging, some of the action sequences of damaging them are the same or very similar. In a game that's greatness lies in the fact that it manages to shake up regular routine, watching the same processes gets old more noticeably and much more quickly.

Shank is still an awesome game that's worth every dollar of the twenty you'll spend to get it off the Playstation Store. I give it 4 Shanks out of 5 kidneys.


Til next time, the gamer with horns in his hat (and videos in his blog).