Ok so we don't have a thread on "Shadows of the Damned" the Suda51/Shinji Mikami collab? because it think i might buy it tonight

This game seems to have sunk like a stone, but it looks like it should be good? reviews are decent? what am i missing?

Looks great. Waiting for it to go <$20.

so

my reactions to this are *complicated*

do tell

on the plus side, its def a suda 51 thing, lots of completely insane decisions and ideas. and there are times where it really works and the quirkiness is totally rewarding, and its far more playable in the conventional sense than no more heroes ever was. Environments are really interesting, and the baddie design (well the visual design in general) is fantastic. The points where the game steps outside of itself and does meta commentary on how the main character is pretty much an idiot all really work, including an amazing section where garcia (main character) is reading a book aloud and struggling to make it through some of the longer words (speaking of which the voice acting in this is about as good as it gets. srsly). It also never becomes boring, and the pacing is top-notch - at various points when things threatened to become a little samey they throw completely bizarre stuff at you which works wonderfully, esp in the use of puzzles, some of which are among the best (not hardest) ive seen in a long time.

BUT
the sense of humor is juvenile in the extreme, which sometimes works, but when youve heard garcia say "TASTE MY BIG BONER!!" 70 times in a row it really starts to wear on you. It also falls victim to some brain destroying mistakes wrt to save point placement and unskippable cutscenes, and the dreaded timed run away while dodging obstacles do this section 50 times in a row issue. There are also times where the controls are weirdly unresponsive, and it always comes at the worst and most crucial points. Also make no mistake, this game is mercilessly hard in spots, even at the lowest difficulty level, so the great setpiece moments seem to go by too quickly while the grindy shit can take up 30 minutes of furious yelling at the xbox anger. weirdly, the ending is really unimaginative and uninspired, and seems like a somewhat generic ghostwritten section given all the great writing that came before (i actually have significant suspicions that the last 30 minutes might have been taken out of sudas hands - its that bland and out of character for the game). and unless you are a glutton for punishment, there is no replay value here because it just opens up harder difficulty levels.

glad i played it, and its well worth a rental (or a cheap purchase), and paradoxically its still probably one of the best games i have played this year, but its going back to gamestop for a swap because i cant imagine popping it in again any time in the near future. And for all the great show your friends this crazy shit possibilities, the savepoint system doesnt allow you to go back to specific points, its an autosave only once through and done thing.

idk man

my name is garcia fucking hotspur

let's pretend i posted the tim rogers review and people complained about it

the dreaded timed run away while dodging obstacles do this section 50 times in a row issue

oh hello jet ski in RE4

its really odd, because i think that comes off more negatively than it should? like if i had a bunch of friends to swap games with i would force this on all of them - its the sort of game that you really want other people to play, and i found myself telling my wife (who is not a gamer at all) about it because i thought it was so fascinating, and there are spots that i would talk about in more detail but i dont want to spoiler any of the jump shifts because they're so well implemented and so crazy and fun. it seems like its in the wheelhouse of lots of my favorite off kilter games (madworld, house of the dead, deadly premonition, bulletstorm, etc) but its defiantly unbroken unlike madworld/NMH/Deadly premonition and thats saying something. also it took me 10+ hours to roll through so you are def getting enough game for your money. like i said, its complicated

wow that tim rogers review is str8 garbage for sure tho

well that is a lot more concise than the neogaf discussion on it