Shank Reviews

shank where are you going shank?

fun really enjoyed the animation

Amazing game and creative developers

One of the best PS3 games I played in my childhood, I just 100% all shank games lol.

Classics Games Lads

great gore, awesome action for one hell of a thrill time.

The game is begging for a remaster, but Klei Entertainment just keep looking at Don't Starve and nothing else in their past game catalog other than Mark of the Ninja.

It's alright from what i recall, you only get like 3 hours worth of a game for whatever the price is.

This is a fun hack and slash. plenty of checkpoints and great game play with plenty of combos.

This game has the most Newgrounds energy I've ever seen, and I mean that in both positive and negative ways. As an action game, it's really solid. Juggling enemies and keeping one horde at bay while focusing on another is satisfying, especially as you get more powerful weapons as you play. But other than new weapons, there are very few new elements to gameplay. There's even some light platforming too, but I would have loved at least one time-trial-esque sequence to really test my footwork. When I say the game has Newgrounds energy, this lack of long term progression or extra gameplay variety is what I'm referring to. The game is great to look at and play, but little about it feels substantially better than a really good Flash game. The combat, though satisfying, can be a bit frustrating at times. Enemies telegraph moves in a split second, and dozens of them get thrown at you at once, so it can be hard knowing when to dodge and avoid damage. This lead to several somewhat frustrating sections where I could find the time to swing my chainsaw or blash the shotgun when I was busy trying to wrangle enemies or dodge bullets from the other end of the screen. Also, many of the boss fights require a specific action to open them up to substantial damage, but the environment doesn't telegraph this much at all. Instead, after dying, a newly added tooltip would clue me into that info. This feels like an obvious design flaw, but the pace is so fast that it comes off more as just a minor speed bump. Another element that feels Newgrounds-ish is the tone. This is grindhouse to the fullest extent, and the 2d animated style that is a hallmark of Klei Entertainment makes the graphic violence a little less abrasive and easier to swallow for me. I'd never be able to watch a movie like this, as live-action gore makes me sick. But in a game, I can handle it, and the artstyle makes that even easier to stomach. But man, the violence really is all this game has to offer it seems. There is a story, though a bare-bones and generic one, and I do appreciate the very decent voice acting here, though a subtitle option is sorely missing. Shank is a fun game and a very gamey game. But there's not much about it that really blows me away. Played Shank 2 through PS+ way back on PS3, so I always wanted to complete the series. Now that I have, I can say Shanke 2 is the superior game, but the gap in quality barely exists. These games are so similar that they might as well be one, and I will remember both fondly. There are better 2D platformers, better 2D hack & slashers, and even more satisfyingly gratuitous power fantasies. But the over-the-top adolescent edge of these games gives them a soft spot in my heart that they may not fully deserve, but will have anyway, likely for some time.