izigame.me

I feel shame for not buying this game sooner, and for only paying $2.99 to get it during the sale.
The first Shadow Warrior (2000's, not the original from the 90's) was decent. But, it had flaws. The ranged weapons felt handicapped in weird ways (eg: a revolver that shoots slow until you upgrade it), enemies got repetitious, levels were huge and a bit annoying to traverse at times (where do I go? what do I do?), and the upgrade system was a bit painful (collect money, xp and chi to upgrade weapons, abilities and powers separately).
But, it had a good story once you got going. And, the melee katana fighting was halfway decent. So, I could look past the awkward ranged weapons by playing it katana-only.
I've played sequels in game series' before that are either more of the same, or become lackluster cash grabs. So, I was holding off playing Shadow Warrior 2. The original was ok, but I figured the sequel would be more of the same or less. I'm just at that age where I'm picky about my games, and I've been burned too hard from other games that seemed promising just to be a let down.
Honestly, I just wait for games to go below $4.99 to consider them a "must purchase". That way if they're complete garbage I won't feel like I've wasted my money.
So, Shadow Warrior 2 shows up on-sale for $2.99. I'm thinking this game must be really bad if they're deep-discounting it like that. But, it's been on my wishlist, so I pull the trigger.
I just got done wrapping up another game that was disappointing, so I'm firing up Shadow Warrior 2 preparing to be disappointed, as well.
*ONE WEEKEND LATER*
I've been glued to this freakin game the whole weekend. I'm at that age where games have to REALLY impress me to keep my attention. Some games I've played, I'll get up and go do chores around the house simply because the game isn't captivating me enough. I've given up on games before, not even completing them, b/c they've just lost my attention.
But, not Shadow Warrior 2!
This thing made me lose track of large swathes of time.
I get up early. Fire it up.
Wife shows up. "Hey, want breakfast?" No, thanks. I'm busy .. uh.. decapitating a bunch of bad guys.
Wife shows up. "You want some lunch?" No, thanks. I'm busy min/maxing a weapon right now.
Wife shows up. "Dinner?" Huh? Oh, no thanks. I'm busy trying to see if I can double-jump to this area to see if it's a secret area.
Wife shows up. "I'm going to bed." Ok. I'll be there shortly after I test out this new skill on some enemies.
*Hours later* I'm still murdering hordes of enemies while double-jump-dashing all over the place.
It starts a bit slow, but once it gets going it's a tour-de-force of "summer popcorn movie" fun.
WEAPONS
The weapons are better, and you "upgrade" them by getting newer/better ones. Some folks may not like this, esp if they like the look/feel of one they have. EG: I like the starting katana, but had to give it up to move on to a better melee weapon. But, it keeps the weapons fresh and interesting. (Most weapons are still doing the same thing as a previous one, with maybe just a minor change. EG: your shotgun is now an auto-shotgun).
It feels a bit like Borderlands, where you're constantly on the look for a newer version of your base weapon (melee, shotgun, small arms, rifles, etc) that has a bit more damage and ability to it. But, instead of tons of guns thrown at you, you just get a new one every now and then.
SKILLS
They lumped powers and abilities together, so you just gain karma (xp) to level up, get skill points (SP), and level whatever you want. Want more health, better Chi powers, carry more ammo? Chuck SP in that respective skill. Much less convoluted than SW1.
You find more more skills as you play, so things are constantly unlocking to give you greater range in what you can do.
Also, my benchmark of a good "RPG lite" game is if I'm having so much fun playing that I forget to level up. I blazed through an area just to realize I had 6 SP banked. I was having too much fun I didn't realize I leveled-up!
I think the only downside I've had is there isn't enough "exciting" stuff to level up if you're not doing Chi powers. I'm doing melee-only, so I've maxed out the melee skills. You can then raise elemental damage boosts, health / chi reserves, ammo reserves.. just mundane stuff. There's Chi powers like healing, "force push", invisibility, etc. But, I'm not focusing on those. So, if you're skipping Chi powers then the rest of the skills seem a bit mundane.
GAMEPLAY
The reason I was losing track of time is because the game play is engrossing. Like SW1 (and other games, like Serious Sam) you'll wander the map for a bit while things are quiet, then enemies swarm in. Like SW1, you tactically kite them or lure them around to take them out.
Unlike SW1, you have the WHOLE D*MN MAP to do so on! And these maps are HUGE!
They give you double-jump and dash (and air dash!) abilities by default; don't even have to purchase them! So, you're running, double-jumping and dashing all over the map evading enemies while dealing some hurt.
Once again, I'm going all-melee, because it's just plain fun! You can charge up your charge attacks, spins, etc like SW1, then plow through enemies and watch them explode! It's immense fun.
Different enemies have different challenges now, though. Some disappear, charge, go invincible, spawn other enemies, swarm, etc. They mix different enemies together to create different challenges, like having a bunch of swarmers flood you to try to give a big dude time to hit with a ranged attack.
So, the combat feels fresh each time, since you're given different scenarios to deal with.
The maps are massive, and, for the most part, you just go where you want, when you want, and explore. There's waypoints to get back on track to objectives, but you're not led by the nose. You go find secrets, or unlock enemies hanging out some place, and just have a blast busting heads and shooting things in the face while ignoring the main objective.
A minor downside is they re-use maps for side quests. But, the maps are so huge and diverse in what's going on, that it doesn't really distract. Especially because the side quest is often some unique set of enemies thrown at you that you're too busy devising tactics to take them out so you don't have time to really stare at the scenery.
The game is also LONG. I spent the weekend just farting around, doing side quests, exploring, and killing anything that got in my way. A whole weekend, and I think I'm not even halfway done with the game.

WEAPON UPGRADES
Giving weapon upgrades special note, because both good and bad.
You collect money, but you don't directly upgrade weapons with it. You buy new weapons if the shopkeeper has them. But, main upgrade is gems. Each weapon can take 3 gems, and gems do things like add elemental damage, faster reload / movement / damage resistance / etc, or a bullet modifier, like sticky bombs on grenade launchers or dual-wield on small arms.
This lets you mix-n-match to your heart's content.
But, gems have rarity (white, blue, gold, orange, etc), and gold+ rarer gems have penalties. The penalty is often enough to make you avoid the rarer gem.
EG: blue gem has +8% to dmg enemies and +8% to dmg resist. Gold gem has +10% dmg to enemies, +10% dmg resist, but also slows my movement 10%, or makes me reload 10% slower, or some other stupid penalty.
I don't know who made this design decision, but it's frustrating. Rare drops should be better, not "sort of better, and a lot worse in this one thing". Boggles my mind.
OVERALL
The minor flaws don't make this game any less ridiculously fun. I wish I would have picked this up sooner. I feel criminal for paying $2.99 for this gem. Then again, it got Shadow Warrior back on my radar, and I'm thinking of picking up SW3 now, too. (I didn't even realize they had made an SW3)