How will a 17-year-old Trevelyan deal with what looks like a 60 dollar Acclaim™  ­ turd? Will he try returning it to Wal Mart, or will he spend the rest of his evening watching Max After Dark?! Only He and God will know exactly what happened, but hit the jump for more insane storytelling of betrayal and redemption (between me and Nintendo, not the game itself)!

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(In case you missed it, this is part 2 of my story of playing this mysterious game, both the past and present are involved.)

As we left off, despite the fact I immediately hated this game, and couldn’t decide which problem with the game I hated worse (the graphics, the sound or the controls), I still had an urge to play it and see it through. I would say back then, the controls were the most irritating of all.

Here it is, years after Tomb Raider part 1 arrived on the Playstation, and this game attempted to (somewhat) mimic it’s control scheme; You ran forward by pressing Up on the control stick, strafed by holding the R button, and performed other basic actions with the C and A/B buttons. The camera was controlled with the left D-Pad, which was pointless for most scenarios. You could zoom closer in to Shadow Man, but it only made the game run worse, and was also pointless. Your character has a ridiculously bad posture no matter what he does, so why try and observe this closer? To learn how to stand up straight?

After (now) several playthroughs, I can now tell you the best way to describe this game’s control scheme as a mix of Zelda (N64), and Tomb Raider (PSX). You’re allowed to lock-on to enemies and strafe, but locking on is a HUGE pain in the ass. Fighting close range enemies is an old-school affair: Jump backwards and fire. The most unique feature off the bat is the fact that you dual-wield weapons and equipment, one for each hand, and couldn’t perform certain actions with both hands occupied (I always needed one hand free when playing this game. (Masturbation joke #2, kids!)

After Mike (Shadow Man’s daytime ego) arrives at the house (and I didn’t get stuck on a polygon this time), you’re given a teddy bear that belonged to Mike’s late little brother. Since Mike’s emotionally tied to it, he use it to travel to Deadside, and begin his quest to recover the dark souls within.

I was still extremely pissed I bought this game at this point, because the game wasn’t getting any better. The Deadside graphics had not improved, and you’re greeted with your first of many annoying enemies; this one just emits noise every 5 seconds, and sounds like stepping on a nearly dead cat.

Here, I learned how to shoot an enemy 17 times to incapacitate it; once an enemy in Deadside takes enough hits, it must be finished off with one last shot of the Shadowgun (brilliant name).  The problem with this is, if you hesitate (or rather, lose your lock-on for no reason, which happens a lot), he instantly recovers and is back at it. Contrary to what general gaming logic would let you believe, he gains full (or nearly full) health if you fail to finish him off.

I’m greeted by Jaunty, (pictured above, sorta) the gate keeper of the Marrow Gates. After a brief conversation he opens the giant rib cage and you’re allowed into the rest of deadside. It’s by now, in present day I realize that considering the shit storm you enter into I’m not sure exactly what they were keeping out. Your first agenda (and only one at this point) is to collect dark souls, and get into the Dark Asylum. This is were the game started to demonstrate it’s nature of absolute confusion and non-linear, convoluted pathways. This game, for better or worse, did not give you a CLUE as where to go, or what to do. For hours, I struggled with the controls, shot out gigantic hearts (containing the dark souls), and got lost.

You find a book shortly after you start, entitled “The Prophecy”. It was left behind by a Voodoo god from over a hundred years ago; he explains the nature of Coffin Gates, a means of sealing off other areas until you are powerful enough to proceed. This is demonstrated right away, by clasping your arms on a pedestal and blowing the coffin gate open. “I, AM THE LORD OF DEADSIDE!”, yells Shadowman. Okay, finally something cool happens in this game.

Each and every dark soul you capture into your body is cut into a 5-second cut-scene where he yells out some other line, basically stroking his ego; the premise being that even though he’s a good guy, the evil in the souls brings out his evil, whilst making him strong as shit.

And that’s where the game begins to heal itself of it’s irritation; the enemies that took 17 hits to incapacitate a lone enemy now only take 5, provided you charge up your shots. Your shadowbar at each “level” will increase in power, and allow access to other areas and secrets. You acquire other weapons that also are used as shortcuts. Your teddy bear also comes in handy, cutting down on backtracking. And again, I started to enjoy this game, when items I acquire remind me of areas where I should go back to, to find out where a new path may lead. It’s also the time I realized that not having a map may actually be a good thing for once, since my primary enjoyment at this point was exploring. This game already had a shitload of THAT.

I know the formula is a lot like many games of that era, but the style of the non-linear, confusing-as-hell-mess of game design was what really sparked my interest in Shadow Man. This game makes absolutely no attempt to hold your hand; while you had infinite lives (guess what? Shadow Man is dead!), you made use of it constantly through bad jumps and enemies that tore you up. And while the A.I was nothing new or special, the feeling of progression from fewer and fewer shots to slice them open was satisfying.  And then, there was the plot.

For a game of this era, the voice acting was terrific. Shadow Man’s voice was commanding, and his lines were insightful. (A lot of the dialog is describing the area you’re about to explore, and he speaks in a Gothic tongue. Not bad for a platformer.) The text given to you gives a rich insight as to the background of the “Five” (serial killers you must hunt down), and clues about the items you acquire. It’s this seemingly accurate portrayal of Voodoo that gives this game the edge on other titles, despite it’s glaring flaws.

As for the controls, they do get better, as they do in any game like this. Once the nuances of platforming are figured out, it’s generally a matter of not screwing up by getting impatient. There are a ton of instant-death spots throughout the game, but once again, this is where the game’s progression gets awesome.

About a quarter a way through the game, you must pass a trial in a temple, and in doing so, get a tattoo on your arms. This allows you to push blocks that are scalding to the touch, and hand-over-hand ledges that are on fire (?). While that’s a neat trick, the 2nd temple’s trial later on allows to you run on hot coals, which normally (frequently) killed you instantly. Suddenly, the entire game’s instant-death zones are now fully accessible to you. I have a hard time remembering a game that had this much new exploration opened up to the player so suddenly.

To top it off, a final trial near the game’s conclusion allows you to dive into molten lava, and swim around with no issues. While overkill, nearly the same amount of new exploration was opened up at this point. These are but a few examples of how the game operated; while most games with hubs, new unlocked areas and other similar traits had their gameplay up to speed, this game had it’s overall design mastered here. By the end, I didn’t care about the shitty graphics and the rough controls, I could swim through fucking LAVA!

Well, That’s it for now, I leave the final chapter of my experience with Shadow Man to when I again complete this game in modern times, and dissect it fully. Also, you get to hear how this game ends. I swear it’s worth your time. Good day, ‘Yall!

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