If you didn’t listen toPodtoid 114, you might’ve never heard ofKlei Entertainment‘sShank. Since it doesn’t have a publisher or a platform (although I did demo it with an Xbox 360 controller) and was only announced at PAX a few weeks ago, that’s quite alright. For a quick look atShank‘s pedigree, keep in mind that Klei also developed bothEetsgames (for which they receivedan enormous grantfrom the Canadian government) andN+.
So, yeah,Shank. It’s kind of like that episode in Season One ofArrested Developmentwhen GOB gets himself thrown in prison as a publicity stunt so that he can escape the next day. His plan goes awry when he gets shivved in the back by White Power Bill. In the show, you’re supposed to empathize with GOB because he has daddy issues.
InShank, you play as White Power Bill. Without the neo-Nazism.
I don’t know a lot aboutShank‘s story or its protagonist (let’s call him Bill*), but I do know that Bill has a set of prison shivs, a chainsaw, and some pistols and that his hobbies include killing people before they have a chance to kill him.Shankfeatures really fluid animations, both in the game and the cutscenes, which is nice because the combat would be totally scuttled without them.
Shanklooks like a pretty standard 2D sidescrolling action-platformer … and it is.Shankdoesn’t innovate in any way whatsoever, but it doesn’t matter because it’s the tightest and most balanced 2D sidescrolling action-platformer I’ve played in a long time. It’s a refined and finely-tuned game that does pretty much everything right. To put it rather bluntly,Shanksimply feels good to play: different weapons (shank, chainsaw, pistols) are mapped to different face buttons, and stringing combos together using Bill’s entire arsenal is really the key to success.
Not only is sticking to just one weapon boring, but it doesn’t set up thoseDevil May Cry–esque juggling combos nearly as well as a nice mix. My personal favorite is a few swipes with the shanks and a chainsaw uppercut, capped off by a few bullet rounds as the enemy falls back to the ground. There’s also a really nice pouncing move that allows Bill to pin one enemy to the ground while shooting in either direction. It’s great for crowd control, and I have a feeling it will be increasingly useful in the later levels.
Perhaps my favorite thing aboutShankis that it doesn’t have any pretensions about why it’s fun. There aren’t any power-ups or a high score or a combo counter—Shankwants you to learn new combos because killing people in new ways is cool and badass and empowering in and of itself, not because you want to get a better combo chain. And it works incredibly well, especially considering that the possibilities seem pretty endless. If you check out the gameplay video, you’ll see some combos that I never considered when I played it. When you add in Bill’s swinging and wall-running abilities, it seems that simple experimentation might beShank‘s biggest strength.
Like I mentioned earlier, Klei hasn’t announced a platform forShankyet, but I did play it on an Xbox 360 controller. There was also a Dreamcast controller laying nearby, and fans are already clamoring for a PSN release onThe Shank Blog. I hope to keep you guys updated as we get more information.
