Shadows of the Damned, developed by Grasshopper Manufacture and published by EA, came out in 2011. The company pairing seems odd when you think of their respective mindsets, but the critics mostly enjoyed the final game, and so did a cult fan base. Xbox owners who wanted to try the game were lucky to see the Xbox 360 title be backward compatible with the newer systems in that family, but PlayStation owners were out of luck unless they still had their PS3. After 13 years, the game has been remastered for every modern platform, including the PC, under the name Shadows of the Damned: Hella Remastered.

In Shadows of the Damned, players take on the role of a demon hunter named Garcia Hotspur. On this night, after killing a demon that taunts him about his girlfriend Paula, he runs back to his apartment to find that she's hanged herself — and another demon emerges from her body moments later. He then learns that Paula is still alive but has been kidnapped by the demon lord Fleming. With his transforming skull demon Johnson by his side, Garcia goes into the underworld to rescue his love.

The story and overall vibe of the game are different and raunchy. The game aims for a grindhouse vibe, and while it has the gore covered, it indulges in the sex quite a bit. Visions of Paula running around in her lingerie are prominent, and there are many penis jokes and references. For example, the name of your sidekick is Johnson, and his weapon is called a boner. You use Johnson as a catalyst for a fireworks machine by vigorously pumping him up and down until explosions occur. It's dirty in a way that feels like childish humor. The jokes may or may not land, depending on your sense of humor.

The game can be classified as a third-person shooter, but it follows the mechanics of Resident Evil 4 more than any other shooter. You can't fire a gun unless you're actively aiming, and the act of aiming comes with free movement of your laser sights. You can freely move around while aiming and shooting, so you aren't a stationary target. You also have a quick turn and a quick melee attack to knock away enemies that get too close, but you can only kill an enemy with a gun.

Speaking of which, Johnson can transform into one of three different gun types: a pistol, a machine gun, and a shotgun. Each of these guns have limited bullets, but unlike a horror game, ammo is plentiful, so you don't have to make every shot count. Each gun can shoot out a light-infused bullet that can light up faraway torches and stun enemies. Each gun also has special bullets, such as sticky bombs that can blow open passageways, enemy-seeking bullets, and even a rolling bomb. All of your guns and stats, such as health and strength, can be upgraded via special red gems you'll find in the environment or with a shopkeeper, who sells them in exchange for white gems.

The gunplay is fun and somewhat distinct due to an aiming system that is rarely used in games nowadays. Every weapon is a joy to use, and the weapon switching is fast enough that there's rarely a situation where you'll be completely vulnerable to demon attacks. The ability to blow off limbs is cool, but the game makes you work for it, as you might need multiple shots to dismember a foe.

There's a love-hate relationship with the boss fights. A majority of them stick with the tried-and-true mechanic of looking for or exposing a weak spot before each boss is made vulnerable. Some of the fights take place in areas that give you a chance to use the environment to your advantage, while other fights feel like slogs as you try to figure out how to get your shots to work. There's no boss fight that's outright terrible, but a few are worse than others.

Another thing that is a detriment to the gunplay is the camera. Aiming means having the camera go in very close to Garcia's shoulder, causing players to lose visibility except for a small field of view in front. With Garcia always shifted to the left, that also means that aiming for items to your left can feel like you're shooting blindly or waiting for the end of the laser pointer to appear so you know what you're hitting. This isn't bothersome enough to ruin the shooting experience, but some tweaking could've been done to correct this oversight.

Beyond combat, the game dabbles with some light puzzle elements. Some of the basic puzzles involve locating baby-faced gates that need to eat something before they can be unlocked. Some gates simply need to be shot. Some of the more inventive puzzles are focused on the use of light and shadow, with the latter being harmful as it eats away at your health while acting as a shield for some demons. Some of the simpler puzzles have you firing a light shot at a lamp or goat head to illuminate the area, while others have you peering into the darkness to make a switch visible. None of the puzzles are too difficult, but they're all done well enough that you don't mind them.

The puzzle elements are fine, but they also highlight how linear the journey is. The game really wants you to go down one path for each level, and it rarely offers an opportunity for exploration. If you go off the beaten path, the alternate pathways become short, but the rewards are decent; you'll get some gems or booze to refill your health after a grueling fight. It's something to be aware of if you're used to side-quests in other games.

Like a good number of games from Grasshopper Manufacture, Shadows of the Damned isn't content with only being a third-person shooter with light puzzle elements. There are moments when the game throws away the third-person viewpoint in favor of a 2D side-scrolling view that adopts a papercraft graphical style. It's kind of neat to experience this radical style change, but it also occurs often enough and in multiple instances that the trick feels a little worn out, especially when you experience it in a boss fight. More interesting are the few moments when the game simply stops as you read twisted storybook origin stories of some of the game's bosses. The spirited readings of these tales by Johnson, along with the brief interludes of sexual humor, make for some genuinely laugh-out-loud moments and nice breaks in the linear adventure.

The game remains strangely endearing despite some of the issues mentioned earlier. The linear adventure game design is easier to swallow than the likes of Unknown 9: Awakening simply because this game came from the era, so it feels more authentic in its design. The signature quirks, like the change in graphical styles and viewpoints, are part of the Suda51 experience, and the combat still feels distinct enough today. Even with the issues pointed out earlier, you'll still be compelled to finish the game. A New Game+ mode and new costumes give you some incentive to return after the credits roll.

For PC players, Shadows of the Damned features one big, glaring omission: the lack of meaningful options in-game. Graphical options are nowhere to be found, so those wanting to change the resolution have to hope that the game knows what it's doing. While the game recommends a controller, it can be played with a keyboard and mouse, but you need to go to a launcher that looks like it came from the pre-Steam era to alter anything. These options are best described as "less than bare bones" for a PC game.

Those expecting a big graphical overhaul due to the game's subtitle of Hella Remastered will be in for some disappointment. This is mostly due to the textures, which get some benefits from the game's resolution bump but are still low-resolution most of the time. The character models fare a bit better as far as their geometry goes, but the animations can still be quite jerky. The lighting is interesting, since the game goes for a very grainy and dark look, but there are moments when the game can still look nice. The game moves smoothly thanks to an uncapped frame rate and the aforementioned resolution bump, so you're looking at a game free of jagged lines.

Even if the audio was relatively untouched, it still holds up by today's standards. Akira Yamaoka's soundtrack isn't afraid to use something offbeat like Indian chanting and traditional Latin instruments to create something offbeat but unsettling, making for a soundtrack that is equal parts bizarre and memorable. The vocal performances are also memorable; each one is good, even if some characters tend to overact. Again, it matches the whole game's vibe of being weird and slightly amusing in a place meant to evoke feelings of horror.

Considering that this is a port of a game from three console generations ago, Steam Deck owners would expect the game to run well on Valve's handheld device. From what we can tell, the game runs at the device's native resolution of 1280x800, but it manages to look better than what's on the Xbox 360, even with backward compatibility via the Xbox Series X. The frame rate is locked to 60fps at all times, no matter what's going on in a scene. On the LCD version of the device, the battery life pm a full charge is roughly a little over three hours. The presence of working cloud saves means the game is a perfect fit for the handheld, especially if you constantly go from one machine to another.

Shadows of the Damned: Hella Remastered is just as offbeat and captivating as it was when it originally came out 13 years ago. The story works partially because of how it isn't afraid to be funny and gross, and the lack of malice sells the game, even if the humor doesn't strike a chord for some people. The gameplay is fine enough that the rough edges can be ignored at times. It sounds just as good as before and looks much better, but one can't help wishing that more care had been taken to create something more than a barebones port of the original.

Score: 7.0/10