Shank - Demo - PS3

[Ohio Joe]

2 gig download.

OK, I never heard of this before but decided to try it. Your... some guy who wants revenge for something.. heh, not sure as I did not read the blurb very closely :)

Right. Download and install it (damn that install is taking a long time) and fire it up! Rated M, gore and violence, sweet. Cartoon opening with various scenes of your character committing some cool looking acts of violence then on to the main menu... lets see, Play the Story, Multi player campaign, Help&Options and buy the game, lets check out the options.

Controls... ugh, this looks like Street Fighter type controls, maybe dumbed down a bit but depending on your proximity and direction to an enemy, different buttons do different things, looks like a button masher that you might learn to control if you have the dedication.

OK, lets play the story. hmmm, two settings in the demo, normal (play the game and enjoy the story) and hard (Tougher enemies and no check points). I'll go with normal.

Opening cinematic - You stroll into a bar and tell the bartender your looking for someone, then you notice a wrestling poster and it gives you a flashback - Flashback - You are beaten down and the wrestler from the poster says he would kill you now but wants your girlfriend instead and wants you to hear her scream... ok, girlfriend raped, I can see why you would want to off this guy. Back to the bar, the bartender calls the wrestler and is told to finish you off. Big bar brawl which shows you getting duel pistols and a chainsaw as weapons, then it is into the action.

Starts off with standard side scrolling action, square button uses your knife, triangle your chainsaw and circle your pistols with X being jump. There are just a few bad guys in the bar and are easily dispatched, heh chainsaw is funny. As you exit the bar you get some comic book style cut ins up in the corners of the bartender relaying to the wrestler that you got away and the wrestler offering a bounty for you. It continues with you making your way across the city, killing bad guys and collecting health (health is drinking bottles of what I think is beer) and... not much else yet.

OK, I've gone a ways now and not much is changing but the scenery and the bad guys so I'll just give my impression of the game now.

Very old school side scrolling beat em up, nothing more. It does look really nice with the cartoon graphics that remind me of Afro Samurai a lot. The story is just kicked up a notch from being bland by including the rape of your girlfriend but really is still "gotta go rescue my girl", done to death. The controls are not even close to my impression of looking at the help, it is really the standard light and fast attack or medium and medium attack or the strong and slow attack... They do however look wicked cool and are presented in a new graphical way which I do indeed like.

I do like this game and will mess with the demo to see if it holds any secrets or at least any cool boss battles but... I will not buy it. I've been here and done this a hundred times and while it is a lot of fun, I'm too damn broke to pay money for a walk down memory lane.

[ZombieHorde]

1. I checked out the demo, it was kinda cool, but I won't buy it.

Scott Pilgrim versus the World is a fun side scrolling beat-em-up demo as well, but I don't think I will buy that one either.

A game I have been eying is Braid. Have you played that one? If you have played it, do you like it?

My favorite downloaded games for the PS3 are Savage Moon, Pixel Junk: Monsters, Super Stardust HD, and Soldner-X 2: Final Prototype.

[Ohio Joe]

2. No, not yet

I'll download the demo, check it out and post my thoughts on it.