Fresh off the Lollipop Chainsaw remaster last month, we’ve got a remaster of another SUDA 51 semi-classic in the form of 2011’s Shadows of the Damned with this new Hella Remastered version. Garcia Hotspur and his “explosive hot boner” are back to sling potty-mouthed humour and nonchalant cuss words at hell’s torrent of demons, but will you want to return to hell to save Garcia’s love interest Paula from the clutches of eternal damnation, or leave this hombre to his alcohol addiction and foul-mouthed remarks?
Maybe they should’ve called this ‘Why The Hella Was This Remastered?” Y’know, because why the hell was Shadows of the Damned remastered? In all fairness it runs much better and is a generally slicker experience than the 13 year-old original game, but many of its flaws are still intact, like the finnicky over-the-shoulder aiming and the somewhat stiff feeling of running and sluggish camera turning. So despite the subtle enhancements, Shadows of the Damned still feels like an Xbox 360 game, but one that has a slicker framerate and looks a bit nicer.
If you’re at all a scholar in the fine arts of a SUDA 51 production, you’ll no doubt be privy to their obsession with phallic jokes and the slaying of many corrupted or undead hordes. Whereas Lollipop Chainsaw blooms with a cheeky and resplendent charm befitting its 18 year-old cheerleader protagonist Juliet Starling, Shadows of the Damned is gunky and blotted in the reds of hell and the bleakness of the satanic afterlife. It’s not all grimness and morbidity though, as Garcia Hotspur likes necking back alcohol in a manner similar to Barny Gumble, and the deluge of penis jokes give off an immature comical vibe, yet if you want a greater sense of horror, Shadows of the Damned won’t stop dicking around enough to satisfy your cravings for the macabre.
SUDA 51 isn’t the only marquis name to grace Shadows of the Damned as credits also include Resident Evil‘s Shinji Makami and Silent Hill music composer Akira Yamaoka, meaning you’ll become familiar with the over-the-shoulder third-person shooting of the former, and the audible finesse of the latter. Despite the inclusion of these legendary names however, Shadows of the Damned doesn’t make the best use of them, at best recycling familiar concepts from the previous games they worked on, but all can be forgiven because of the cock n’ ball humour right?
Rest assured that one of the most convincing reasons to play Shadows of the Damned is the lewd and crude humour spurting from the Garcia Hotspur and his otherworldly skull-headed sidekick Johnson. Lines like “warn me if I gotta fuck a horse to unlock a door” and “fill those cracks with your explosive hot boner” are highlights that you’ll either find side-splittingly hilarious or crass and unpleasant. The banter between Garcia and Johnson is entertaining and does help to elevate the comedy whilst downgrading the horror, but the tradeoff is worth it thanks to the splendid-if-smutty voice acting.
Taking cues from Resident Evil 4 thanks to Makami’s authorial watermark, Shadows of the Damned is an over-the-shoulder third person action title with weapons featuring laser beam sightings and where bullets lands on enemies accompanied by a fleshy squelch. Survival horror influences can be further recognized by locked gates that need unlocking, or in the case of Shadows – baby heads that need to be fed strawberries and brain matter, as well as the feeling of claustrophobia as you wade through hordes in tight spaces. The reminders of Resident Evil are clearly evident here, though they’re regrettably paper-thin as Shadows of the Damned fails to capitalize fully on its drippy lugubrious vibe.
No matter how hellish, dark and demonized Shadows of the Damned is, scares and trembles straight up don’t exist. The dearth of horror is understandably quelled by the gratuitously crude comedy, but you would think Makami’s involvement would grant eeriness and dread to Shadows of the Damned, but alas it’s not scary at all despite the visceral underworld you’re trapped inside of. With that said though, if you’re after some light-hearted demon hunting and enjoy toilet humour, Shadows of the Damned has you filled like a baby’s nappy.
Shadows of the Damned is all about purging the darkness by any means necessary, and the weirdness to which this ballsy actioner goes about it is commendable. Golden wall-mounted goat heads need to be shots to allows the light to feast on the darkness, you’ll need to unlock gates adorned with demon pubic hair, and the aforementioned requirement to shove strawberries into baby gobs to satisfy them into opening the gates they’re mounted on is something only the crazy mind of SUDA 51 could conjure up.
Unfortunately, there’s quite a lot of repetition within its design that gets old pretty quickly. As a seasoned demon hunter, Garcia is adept in the business of eviscerating hellspawn, but consequentially the scourge carry a terrible habit of jumping out with a whirling tornado of darkness surrounding them that can leech Garcia’s health if you find yourself surrounded by it. The only way to get rid of this darkness is to shoot a bright golden goat head with the Boner’s (don’t chuckle it’s the name of Garcia’s gun!) secondary rounds, which will immediately flush away the darkness and restore light and therefore normalcy to your surroundings. Furthermore, the Boner’s alternative fire can turn otherwise untouchable shamblers gunked up in thick darkness, into uncloaked and vulnerable fiends you can pick off at will.
As you progress, more demanding and fierce encounters will occur, including battles against multi-faced darkness-spewing fountains, a knight who rides a horse that poops out blobs of shroud, a demented form of your lover Paula who you must avoid at all costs whenever she appears, and wraiths who can duplicate into fake facsimiles of each other, rushing you to find which one is the real one and shoot it in the heart before the fake wraiths attack you.
Most boss enemies have glimmering red patches of glass that you can shatter with relentless gunfire. Once you’ve found all patches of glass there’s usually an epicentre on the boss that you’ll need to fire persistently at until it has been defeated. These boss encounters are straightforward and uncomplicated, but their designs and quirks make them memorable enough, though you may be left wanting more challenge and unpredictability from them.
You shouldn’t need to worry about your wellbeing too much in Shadows of the Damned as health and upgrades are plentiful. Garcia can buy liquor, gems and skull toothed gun ammo from a freakish vendor by reaching into its mouth and pulling out the spoils. Alcoholic drinks like Tequilla heal Garcia, and he can buy crates of them which will last a while. As for upgrades, you can slot a heart into any of the guns’ attributes as soon as you’ve picked up a red gem on your travels. Bolsters to reload speed, ammo capacity and overall effectiveness can be granted, and your torch can be upgraded too, which will help light Garcia’s way forward easier when he’s otherwise engulfed in darkness.
The gems you collect in Shadows of the Damned are all over the place and act as a form of currency throughout the game. Accumulating white gems allows you to buy items, big red gems are for weapon upgrades, and upon finding blue gems they are studded to Johnson’s head and evolve weapons into more powerful forms. Having multiple gems does help to distinguish what they can be used for, though buying red gems at the vendor is costly, with one big red gem setting you back a hefty amount of white gems, so you might be better off finding them out and about rather than purchasing them.
As a throwback, Shadows of the Damned: Hella Remastered is a reminder of simpler times when games were straightforward and boasted a fluttering of arcade pleasures that prioritized straightforward storytelling, as well as easy and meaty action to tuck right into. The premise echoes such sentiments, as Garcia may as well be Mario and Paula Princess Peach, but what really gives Shadows of the Damned its zest is its intestinal fortitude and its lewd one-liners and camaraderie between Garcia and Johnson.
Conclusion
Where Shadows of the Damned stumbles is within its inability to be a horror game, and although its genital jokes can be chuckle-worthy, the sense of comedy is dimmed by predictable stereotyping. Nevertheless, Shadows of the Damned: Hella Remastered is a treat as it pulls the blinds up and shines the light of straightforward satisfaction into your face in a refreshing way that few modern games can match. Sure, Shadows of the Damned is a hella remastering of a thirteen year-old product, but on current-gen hardware it stands out like Garcia and his uhhh hot boner….Remember it’s the gun in the game you filthy minded scoundrels! So yes, play Hella Remastered, though you may need some in-game Tequilla to not only heal Garcia, but to soothe the sense that not all the pieces in Shadows of the Damned fully jive together harmoniously. Now here’s to that cabrón!
This game was reviewed based on Xbox S|X review code, using an Xbox S|X console. All of the opinions and insights here are subject to that version. Game provided by publisher.
