Shadow Man

INFORMATION                                                     
Publisher: Acclaim                                   
Genre: Adventure
Reviewer:DonRiney                                                                                                               

INTRODUCTION
I'd been intrigued with Shadow Man since I saw the first commercial for it on television.  I wasn't aware at the time that the game was based on a character from a series of comic books.  The comic book background gives the game a tremendously well developed background, setting and cast of characters to pull from.  You play the role of Mike Le Roi - a man who can walk here in the living world - called Liveside, and who can cross over into the realm of the afterlife, or Deadside.  In the mortal world, Mike Le Roi is, well, rather ordinary (see Gameplay below), but Deadside he becomes Shadow Man, blessed with extraordinary powers.  An engaging story of prophecy, voodoo and the undead unfolds via cinematic cut scenes rendered via the same engine used in the game.  It seems that an ancient evil force is gathering dark souls in the creation of an engine of evil in Deadside with the ultimate goal of bringing ruin to the world of the living.  Shadow Man must stop this ancient evil by finding and absorbing the dark souls, which are spread across both realms.  Shadow Man must also confront the ancient evil and its many minions, five of whom are serial killers who seem to be able to cross between Liveside and Deadside, not unlike Shadow Man.

GRAPHICS – 90
In short, the graphics in Shadow Man are very good.  At one point in the game I was simply awestruck at the scale, scope and beauty of the location.  The game does require a 3D accelerator and the Direct X 6.1, but doesn't weigh in too heavily on the CPU requirement side of the house.  The weapon, lighting and environmental effects are very well done and I found myself stopping to just look around, or just watching the fireworks of my own weapons on numerous occasions.  There are the occasional texture seam and clipping problems, but nothing that detracts greatly from the gaming experience.  If there is one problem, it is that a number of the game objects might have been modeled a bit better.  It appears that the designers kept the polygon counts low to keep game speed up.  You can't argue with that decision, as the game generally ran smooth as silk at 800x600 resolution on my 333Mhz K6-2 with Voodoo3 2000.

INTERFACE and MENUS. - 83
This is one area where Shadow Man stumbles a bit.  The menus are generally laid out well, and very pretty to look at.  The menus presented for saving or restoring an adventure can be a bit of a pain to use, and due to the nature of the game you will use them a lot, but get the job done.  The real trip up is the game control interface.  You control Shadow Man from a third person view, not unlike Tomb Raider.  Control options include keyboard, mouse and joystick, though the options for using the mouse are rather limited, and not very useful.  I opted for using the keyboard only, which led to some rather creative finger manipulation when engaging in combat.  I found myself longing for the freedom of the 'mouse look' ala Quake II, Half-Life, etc.  I found the third person view frustrating.  At times it seemed difficult to control Shadow Man through the various maneuvers required to navigate through the game, and to perform seemingly simple tasks like looking up and down.  This can be a problem considering the nature of the gameplay.

GAMEPLAY - 82
The game itself is a mixed bag of combat and arcade type run-duck-jump-at-the-right-moment type of play.  The only real disappointment in this area is that in the arcade type sections, a wrong move is very often fatal.  After you die, the level restarts at the beginning.  If you wish to load your last saved game, you must pull up the menus and restore your adventure - all of which takes far too many steps, and too much time.  Combat can be tricky from the third person view, but most opponents can be defeated without too much difficulty - provided you have the right weapons and items at hand.  The games 15+ levels are generally huge, and interesting enough to keep you from getting bored.  Parts of the levels are initially inaccessible and require that you revisit them once you obtain the required inventory item.  While this may sound tedious, you will often find the level 'restocked' with opponents upon your return.  While Deadside, Shadow Man can dish it out as well as take it.  Liveside, however, is a different story.  I was discouraged to find that Shadow Man, while Liveside, could only hold his breath underwater for about 25 seconds.  In one section I drowned more than a dozen times before I was able to finesse the controls and get Shadow Man where he needed to go before his lungs gave out.  

AUDIO - 95
This is where Shadow Man really kicks.  The music and sound effects are brilliant.  The music really enhances the mood of the game, from the voodoo chant inspired melodies to the truly different and twisted musical themes of the five serial killers you face, to hymn like pieces that bring a sense of awe coupled with techno type back beats.  The sounds effects are all well done, and quite effective at keeping your attention focused on the game.  A number of the effects used for the monsters are quite creepy - from the whispers and half heard mumbles to the startling snarls of rage, you cannot help but be drawn in a bit further into the storyline.  The voiceovers for the cut scenes are well done - better than average at the least.  

DIFFICULTY – 80
Shadow Man isn't an overly difficult game.  At times the arcade type sequences can be frustrating if your aren't into that sort of thing, but there wasn't anything that would keep me from enjoying the game.  The levels are very large, and since you often have to make repeat trips, trying to keep track of where you are and where you've been can be a chore.  As mentioned before, the control interface problems tend to make things a little more difficult than they should be, but overall, the game is quite playable and enjoyable.

OVERALL - 90
Shadow Man is a good game coupled with a truly interesting story and background.  The story is engrossing and I found myself looking forward to completing the game and defeating the ancient evil and saving the mortal world.  If the few disappointing areas in graphics and interface didn't exist, this would be a great game.  I can't help but wonder how the game might have turned out if the designers had opted for a first person model, rather than the third person design.  I have always found the first person model to be more immersive.  Still, Shadow Man is a very good game, and I recommend it to those of you looking for an adventure game with a great story and well developed background.