Shank, a term most commonly used in prison shows like Prison Break to describe the act of stabbing someone with a knife, homebrewed or otherwise, is in actual fact an accurate representation of how your three or so hour long journey through Klei’s story of revenge will play out. Being one of the final Xbox LIVE Arcade releases of the summer, we would hope that the best has been deservedly saved till last.
If you’re a gamer that likes their story, deep character development and a roller coaster ride of twists and turns, Shank is not the game for you. It’s as shallow as the name suggests and provides violence en mass. The concept is simple; jump, climb, shoot and stab your way through what can only be described as a Robert Rodriguez inspired storyline of revenge and murder.
With the market already filled with side scrolling shooters, both classic and new, innovation is as important as gameplay in this day and age, and it seems as though the developers have taken this to heart when coming up with the visual style of Shank. The colours are a combination of clear primary colours, which leap out of the screen with the clarity of a heavily inked graphic novel. Most noticeable are the shades of red, of which there is abundance due to the high level of violent content. Character models are nicely designed and extremely pleasant to the eyes, with fluid motion during each and every section of the game. The cut-scenes that break up the action are of the same excellent quality, though the voice acting leaves a little to be desired.
The same attention to detail has been taken with the look of each level. The player will find themselves in a Red Light district, on a train, and even in a monastery. However, the levels do not seem to change the pace of the game and while they look good to the eye, they play out in a mind numbingly similar fashion. There are occasional artistic touches, such as the screen and characters becoming silhouetted during certain combat sections, but nothing really changes; swing on this skull, run on the obvious wall and then keep pushing right until the next wall has been climbed. Shank fails to provide a solid platforming experience.
There is a classic feel to all of the carnage, scrolling mostly from left to right and pausing to engage in set pieces. As for the poor meat bags that you’ll be slashing to ribbons, all the usual suspects are here; hand-to-hand combatants, gun-toting soldiers and huge strong armed bruisers…classic. Shank gives the player an interesting arsenal to eviscerate their opponents, which include Shanks weapon of choice, a handy pair of shivs, pistols, a chainsaw and even chains to pummel and throttle people to death.
Boss battles are a recurring theme in Shank, and it’s good to know that the game will tell you what to do if you fail on your first attempt. This is a perfect example of spoon-feeding by developers. Players should be allowed to fail over and over again until they work it out. In the end, each boss battle is a simple case of working out the little “trick”, then rinse and repeat. More variety would have been appreciated in this aspect.
With all the violence and superb art style Shank has to offer, it’s a little disheartening to realise that it can all become very samey, and quite quickly too. It is possible to repeatedly use the same combo over and over to defeat each wave of enemies and although boss battles break up the pace, repetition throughout every aspect of the game leads to a dulled experience. By no means is Shank a terrible game, but there are better side-scrolling games with more to offer. In the end, variety is not the spice of Shank.
VideogameUK verdict: 7/10
