Last night I finished Shadow Warrior, and as it has been confirmed as coming to them there new consoles in a couple of months I thought I would do a review of it.

Shadow Warrior is a firmly single player first person shooter, set in Japan and featuring a protagonist named Lo Wang. If you sniggered at that name, like I did, congratulations you are the games target audience. Yep the game has plenty of dick jokes in it, and, much to my shame I found it pretty funny through out. The game has Lo accompanied by a demon spirit and has a sort of buddy cop style narrative, becoming friends, overcoming adversity etc. It is actually a testament to the writers that while the game is consistently funny, it also can occasionally be a little touching (Wang, sorry couldn’t resist). Though it can be a little jarring to go from the one extreme to the other.

All the dick jokes in the world aren’t going to make a game great, so it is fortunate that the shooting/slashing is pretty damn fun. Yes slashing, as you have a sword through out the game. And whilst you pick up fairly standard weapons, machine gun, shotgun etc, the sword remains your go to killing device and as you go through the game you unlock new sword abilities and powers to keep it fresh. One of my favourite being the ability to levitate enemies temporarily, as Wang calls them, Demon pinatas.

The game is very pretty, and I can see why a next (this?) gen conversion is underway. The sun soaked, maple garden opening being particularly stunning, and whilst it remains attractive throughout, the more industrial sections seem flat and dull compared to the more outdoor area’s. The enemies you face are definitely from the Doom handbook of game design, lots of big demons and the occasional boss, as is a lot of the game play. This is game where enemies spawn from portals until they are all dead and area’s are closed off until you have found the key. It even has med kits to refill your health.

Shadow Warrior gets my recommendation, the game play is hugely satisfying, it is funny and, after playing many pretentious grey shooters, it doesn’t take itself seriously. It reminds me a great deal of Bulletstorm, and frankly I can’t think of a nicer thing to say about it than that.

NB I paid £6 for it on the steam sale, you really should buy a PC.

Twitter: @hangmansj0e