This has been a very good year for redeeming mid-1990s game characters. First Lara Croft was reborn as a realistically proportioned and dignified heroine in an outstanding new adventure, and now Lo Wang, Shadow Warrior’s seemingly irredeemable racist caricature, stars in his own excellent reboot with none of the uncomfortable baggage. This reimagining succeeds as a fast-paced shooter with great melee combat, a fun, memorable protagonist, and a huge single-player campaign with a rewarding story.
I didn’t expect it, but yes, the plot impresses. It begins as a simple quest to recover three pieces of a magical sword in order to destroy ancient spirits from another dimension – nothing new there. But by the end of the tale more than 20 hours later, our wisecracking ninja warrior is fighting his way through demons against a backdrop of a surprisingly deep tragedy. The acting is pretty good, especially from Wang’s spirit sidekick Hoji, and the contrast between the tone of the light-hearted banter between them and the somber backstory in the cinematics somehow works. Considering Wang is basically a walking penis joke, that’s a lot more than I anticipated from Shadow Warrior. Of course, the abundant crude humor is there as well, and it works more often than not. The intentionally cheesy fortune cookie gags are a great reward for thoroughly searching these large levels, and… well, there are demon bunnies. I’ll leave it at that.
http://feeds.ign.com/~r/ign/all/~3/Kwn4yFpt0aE/shadow-warrior-review
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