Shadow Warrior 3

Shadow Warrior is such a confusing series in terms of identity, as it always seems to be chasing the trends of the time. The first entry was a hard as balls doom clone, then the reboot came and it was a solid game with a lot of focus on rpg lite mechanics and swordplay, the second tried its hand at procedural looter shooter, and for the third entry they decided to just try to replicate doom 2016 and eternal's mechanics. And for the most part it works!

Storywise the game is really dumb, with annoying side characters and way too many attempts at being funny. Wang is a prick during cutscenes, but he also doesnt shut up during gameplay, and it can really test one's patience.

Visually the game has a lot going for it, with its very colourful and high contrast style, thats just perfect for the fast paced action within. It looks really nice considering this is a AA studio, which show their mastery over Unreal Engine 4.

Gameplay is really the main reason to play this, and it really plays very similar to Doom Eternal. You have a lot of different enemies to dispatch, divided into big and small. The small keep spawning infinitly until you death the big ones, and they are so easily dispatched that they are more there to serve as a source of ammo and health when you kill them. The big ones are easily distinguishable and serve very different roles in combat, which really forces you to prioritize certain enemies. There is also a finishing system, which gives you acess to unique temporary weapons depending on the enemy, and these are really overpowered, but always fun to use. When you understand its systems and how neatly they interact with each other the game can really lure you into its sense of flow, and its really satisfying on a moment to moment basis.

With a double jump, a dash and a grappling hook there is a lot of mobility given to the player. These are also used in platforming sections, which tend to be too linear and on the easy side to really be any fun. They act well enough as pacing, but some of the really go for way too long.

The game is overall quite short, being easy to beat it under 5 hours. Those 5 hours are adrenaline fueled fun time, even with the dumb story and passable platforming sections, which makes this one a great time for fans of mechanically challenging first person shooters.