| 07 September 2010
Our new friend Adam Morris sent in this review for the XBLA and PSN (ok, and PC...) kill-em-up, Shank. Enjoy!
For a long time my sadistic need for a brutal couple of hours of remorseless bloodshed had gone unsatisfied, which is why I was awaiting Klei entertainment's latest entry Shank with extremely high hopes. The first thing anyone will notice about Shank is its striking visual art style and the fluid combat animations, which are Shank's best and most defining attributes, meaning it makes one hell of a first impression. Unfortunately that impression is short lived as Shank's visuals cannot carry the game on their own, therefore towards the end portion of the four-hour playtime the repetitive combat starts to really wear thin.
Right from the beginning, Shank is thrown into the thick of combat and you rapidly receive your starting weapons, twin pistols, a chainsaw and of course your shanks. As you progress through the story more options for weapons will become available including an uzi, machetes, a shotgun and a samurai sword, these weapons can be changed on the fly at any time with a tap of the D-pad, although I rarely found myself switching from my shotgun, shanks and chainsaw set-up because... well it wasn't necessary. When facing an enemy one on one combat becomes a breeze, but Shank is all about crowd control and it's here where the starting difficulty arises, as even the enemies you will face in the first levels have a surprising amount of health, but once you find your favorite combos and learn to crowd control the onslaught of bloodthirsty goons heading your way, this is when Shank's combat shines.
One thing that surprised me about Shank's composition is the amount of detail that Klei have put into Shank's storyline, it's nothing revolutionary with a basic “revenge on those that killed your girlfriend” storyline but with the stylish cut scenes and picture in picture-comic book style animations moving the story along at a steady pace, it helps the player connect with the Shank character and portrays the motive behind all of the bloodshed. While the tale isn't anything new, to be honest is was far more then I was expecting and was a welcome change from the total disregard of storytelling from recent games of this genre.
Unfortunately at times Shank gives priority to good looking animations at the expense of responsive controls, most noticeably in boss fights, where you must first find the bosses weakness, this weakness will then be exploited by the press of the R1 button to do massive damage, although many times the controls will just not respond to this action, instead Shank will dash forward and miss the opportunity, this makes some unlucky boss fights frustrating and repetitive.
This is Shank's problem in general, for 4 hours it's the same protocol level after level, once you have your favoured load out and your trusty combo rhythm down you will rarely have need to stray from it, meaning the fun juggling of enemies you encountered at the start, becomes a repetitive grind to another boss fight. There are also frustrating moments in the game when enemies armed with guns are perched on an upper level, without the ability to shoot directly upwards, it makes from some fussy and annoying character positioning, which just felt completely unnecessary.
The game lasted just over 4 hours on normal difficulty and I had little incentive (except a trophy) to play through again on hard. There are unlockables but these come only in the form of costumes that add nothing to the characters play style and just change the physical look of Shank, they are OK as a random reward, but I doubt anyone would go out of their way to collect them all. There is also a co-op mode, which is restricted to local only play but after a repetitious last 40 minutes of combat and an extremely frustrating final boss fight, I had no intention of sitting through it again with a friend.
With the recent flood of downloadable games, the battle of quality versus quantity is bound to arise with Shank and while it isn't a perfect game I can think of many things worse to spend £10/$15 on and 4 hours doing. When Shank is at its best its potential shines, but this temporary shine makes the game's repetitive downside so much more apparent and disappointing.
One thing that surprised me about Shank's composition is the amount of detail that Klei have put into Shank's storyline, it's nothing revolutionary with a basic “revenge on those that killed your girlfriend” storyline but with the stylish cut scenes and picture in picture-comic book style animations moving the story along at a steady pace, it helps the player connect with the Shank character and portrays the motive behind all of the bloodshed. While the tale isn't anything new, to be honest is was far more then I was expecting and was a welcome change from the total disregard of storytelling from recent games of this genre.
Unfortunately at times Shank gives priority to good looking animations at the expense of responsive controls, most noticeably in boss fights, where you must first find the bosses weakness, this weakness will then be exploited by the press of the R1 button to do massive damage, although many times the controls will just not respond to this action, instead Shank will dash forward and miss the opportunity, this makes some unlucky boss fights frustrating and repetitive.
This is Shank's problem in general, for 4 hours it's the same protocol level after level, once you have your favoured load out and your trusty combo rhythm down you will rarely have need to stray from it, meaning the fun juggling of enemies you encountered at the start, becomes a repetitive grind to another boss fight. There are also frustrating moments in the game when enemies armed with guns are perched on an upper level, without the ability to shoot directly upwards, it makes from some fussy and annoying character positioning, which just felt completely unnecessary.
The game lasted just over 4 hours on normal difficulty and I had little incentive (except a trophy) to play through again on hard. There are unlockables but these come only in the form of costumes that add nothing to the characters play style and just change the physical look of Shank, they are OK as a random reward, but I doubt anyone would go out of their way to collect them all. There is also a co-op mode, which is restricted to local only play but after a repetitious last 40 minutes of combat and an extremely frustrating final boss fight, I had no intention of sitting through it again with a friend.
With the recent flood of downloadable games, the battle of quality versus quantity is bound to arise with Shank and while it isn't a perfect game I can think of many things worse to spend £10/$15 on and 4 hours doing. When Shank is at its best its potential shines, but this temporary shine makes the game's repetitive downside so much more apparent and disappointing.
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