Marvelous! It’s just unbelievable when not the most outstanding series gets to the third part. At a time when cult games disappear after the debut, other projects with more modest qualities continue to come out. And today’s guest, the shooter Shadow Warrior 3, can be attributed to such “rogues”. What is this triquel? Let’s go figure it out.
The studio approached the plot very simply. An evil dragon flew in and brought demons with it, and we, in the role of the ninja warrior Lo Wang, must stop them. And this is a complete, exhaustive description of the plot. Complicated motivation? Crafted world? Don’t wait! The plot will try to perform a couple of turns, but they turn out to be completely ridiculous. Either we go according to plan “A”, then, at the whim of the hero, we sharply turn to “B”, then, with amendments, we roll back to the first idea. These maneuvers cannot even be called the framework of the plot, not to mention a full-fledged story. Here you can recall a quote from one film: “There is movement, but no progress.”
And okay, if Shadow Warrior 3 managed a minimum of commercials and was not imposed on the player at all. But there are two problems. Firstly, the main character does not shut up for a minute and gives out jokes of increased cringe: either a bad play on words, or rehashings of famous hits with an arbitrary insertion of curses. Secondly, there are a lot of cut-scenes, and their editing causes dizziness: the camera constantly flickers and almost crawls into the nostrils of the characters. It’s just hard to watch local performances, what kind of understanding of the plot are we talking about? And this farce will not unhook from you until the final credits.
The game component is suspiciously reminiscent of Doom. But developers in imitation resemble a hyperactive hero. He first asks about a difficult subject, and then, in the middle of the second sentence, he starts waving his arms and exclaims: “I understand, I’ll do it right now.” The result turned out to be expected: the authors may have caught the idea, but they successfully overlooked the nuances.
In general, the battles look familiar. We find ourselves in a small arena and with the help of an arsenal of weapons we smash various monsters. At the same time, katana strikes and weapon firing are separated by different buttons, so there is no need to go into the menu once again. The “economy” of battles is as follows: melee strikes bring ammo, and hits from a firearm knock out healing spheres.
Because of this, it may seem that Shadow Warrior 3 will be much easier than Doom. However, the authors add complexity in a not very elegant way: constant “press”. Three demon bulls are chasing you, sorcerers are firing from the air, and all sorts of small monsters are flickering. In addition, the arenas are crowded and there are no normal shelters, so it’s impossible to break the distance and take a breath. There is one means of crowd control, but we will get to it a bit later.
The finishing system got under the authors’ creative roller. For execution, you do not need to beat the enemy, but just accumulate a special scale and then smash any pest, even with full health. Interestingly, the effect of a brutal move will differ depending on the demon. From the hand of a bull-demon, a hammer is obtained, with which for some time you can bludgeon everyone. And if you finish off the ice shooter, you will get a freezing grenade.
True, it turned out “both on target and past.” Some bonuses are useful, while others are poorly implemented. With the same hammer, the effects are barely visible and it’s hard to see how far it hits. Interestingly, the effect of the simplest ordinary demons turns out to be the most sensible. We get twice the health, and also his “upper” half takes less damage. Great tool for surviving the local mess. Although in any case, the picture of cruel tricks spoils the execution. Remember what animation is in Doom? Spectacular and varied. And Shadow Warrior 3 offers one scene for each demon, so they still do not convey a sense of weight and strength.
Everything turned out strange with the arsenal. I can’t call the weapon bad in terms of animation and sound, but mechanically it seems weak. Any average demon has to take a lot of damage, even from submachine guns, even from a grenade launcher. For example, you can take the swordsmen, who first need to break through the block, and then shoot point-blank for five seconds.
And there are plenty of annoying demons here. Shadow Warrior 3 makes two big mistakes in creating a bestiary. The first is that there are too many flying opponents. Five sorcerers circling through the air are commonplace. And this is a very bad situation for “meat” shooters, since the player is forced to run with his head up, and he has no way to keep track of ground problems. Usually, enemy “aircraft” are made either fragile or extremely slow and in small numbers.
To be fair, Doom Eternal had the same bug, but it popped up on a couple of bosses. The second problem is fleeing opponents. This is some kind of special game “splinter” when you have to chase the enemy through half a map, and he also has not the smallest health. The most striking example is the drilling demons. And they hold the blow well, and often hide underground, and in addition they emit a vile buzz, crawling out to the surface (the sound is useful for searching, but it doesn’t get any better from this).
