So just what would a think tank of Japan's most imaginative game designers come up with?
"In short," Suda 51 says, looking relaxed and content in his trademark leather jacket and rock t-shirt. "It’s a punk horror from hell."
Dropped into Garcia's leather chaps in a hands-on session, I find a familiarly chunky third-person shooter. The controls have Mikami's fingerprints all over them, bearing more than a passing resemblance to
Resident Evil 4 and
5, with a camera snapped closely to Garcia's back and whipping forward over the shoulder when taking aim. Suda 51 and Mikami have worked together before on Lynchian mind-twister
Killer7, and I ask Suda what roles each of them played in constructing
Shadows of the Damned.
"Mikami-san is the producer, he worked a lot on combat especially." Suda explains. "I came up with a lot of new ideas and Mikami-san would give us feedback, saying “Oh yeah, that works, that’s fine” or he would say “oh, that might not appeal to a wider audience”.
Shadows of the Damned certainly appears to be aiming at a broader demographic than usual for a title from Grasshopper Manufacture (Suda 51's development studio). And it's little surprise, considering the publishing rights were snapped up by US behemoth Electronic Arts, the second largest third party publisher in the industry.
"Working with EA, they gave a lot of support and ideas," explains Suda of Grasshopper's relationship with the publisher. "They were very respectful of our creativity. But at the same time we were very comfortable having EA with us, because they have that wide market."
But while the general aim of
Shadows of the Damned might be wide, the individual flair of its creators remains undimmed, shining through in
Shadows' gruesome aesthetic. This is no ordinary hell --all fire and brimstone-- this is a hell created by Fleming's twisted psyche. It's a grimy, unsettling place. Cobbled streets intertwine with each other, dismembered limbs piled in filthy corners and dark alleyways. Old style propaganda is slapped on the wonky stone walls of ornate, gothic architecture. Aside from the grotesque bestiary of the damned that block your path, the tidal wave of severed heads that come tumbling down a street behind me, and the giant neon sign that screams "
WELCOME TO HELL" in pink and black from the front of an opera house, I remark that
Shadows of the Damned's grimy feel resembles Victorian London.
"Really?!" Suda exclaims, looking pleased but genuinely taken aback. "Actually at the very beginning of the project we went to take pictures of Edinburgh and Prague, so you might see a little bit of that in there. But I’m really glad to hear you say that. I didn’t want a ‘simple’ hell. I wanted to give the taste that demons actually live there."
The demons that stalk the streets of Fleming's underworld prefer the dark embrace of shadows. Often when entering an area, a thick oily gloop covers the streets, your enemies feed from it and the black goo saps Garcia's life. While shrouded in darkness, demons cannot be hurt. The shadows evoke a frantic sense of panic, as you try and burst through an area unscathed, or bring the area back to the light. To do so, first you must locate a golden deerhead hidden in a corner of the area, and blast it with your "light shot" which will wipe the area clean of darkness. Then a quick whack with your flaming torch or another light shot will set the demons up to be defeated with conventional firearms.
Well, I say conventional, but while your arsenal is ostensibly made up of a pistol, assault rifle, shotgun and grenade launcher, you only hold one weapon, which is also your companion on this hellish road trip. This is Johnson; a babbling, English-accented skull. Johnson can morph into each weapon at the touch of a button, and absorbs teeth and bones to be used as bullets. And he's always on hand to play off Garcia and deliver a foul-mouthed quip.
While the overall tone of
Shadows of the Damned appears to be darkly comic, Grasshopper aren't afraid of throwing in gruesome psycho-horror. As Garcia, fighting through Fleming's hell, I see Paula, dressed in white negligee flutter round a corner. Giving chase, I find the horrible sight of her severed head lying next to her dismembered body. But as Garcia starts to break down, "Paula" replaces her head onto her body, let's out a guttural roar and transforms into a gore-soaked demon. It's horrible, but Johnson cuts through the milieu with a crude remark. One expects
Shadows of the Damned's tempo to be set by this comedy/horror interplay.
Also making shadows dance to a tune, of course, is Yamaoka. His phenomenal work on
Silent Hill goes beyond simple soundtracking, his work affecting the game world itself. Does his score provide the same well of inspiration for
Shadows of the Damned? "Of course," says Suda. "The music itself drives the game. It actually sets the rhythm of the levels. A lot of our staff members were saying when they heard the music “let’s do it this way”."
With the vaunted trio of designers seemingly working in such harmony,
Shadows of the Damned looks to be a demented distillation of the work they are best known for. There might not be any great revolution in that, but by building those twisted paths they know so well, they should provide a highway to hell worth travelling.
Pre-order Shadows of the Damned (Amazon UK)
Pre-order Shadows of the Damned (Amazon US)
Source :
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/video-games/8476497/Shadows-of-the-Damned-hands-on-preview.html
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