Shadow Man

"If you are even remotely interested in adventures, then you will love this game."

one year ago, a game called shadowman came out. I didn't know about this game at the time so it passed me by. A couple months later, I was surfing gaming sites when I suddenly came upon Shadowman. the review was praising it so I thought I would go out and rent it or something. By then, no store had shadowman anymore. Eventually, my interest for the game faded. Then, one day, my friend came home with the game! I told him to turn Majora's Mask off and let's play some shadowman! After playing a few hours, I gotta tell you, this game is everything I hoped for and more.

graphics: 10/10 these graphics are amazing! Make sure you have an expansion pak and turn it on before you start the adventure. Your framerate isn't sacrificed at all so don't be afraid. only a few games match shadowman's graphics: The Zelda's and the upcoming eternal darkness. for a one year old game, it's pretty impressive. The load times suck though.

sound: 9.9/10 the ONLY reason this didn't get a 10 was that annoying zombie sounds! those get on your nerves so bad! other than that, the sound is awsome. I especially liked the voice acting. You could understand every word. One thing I have to mention hear: I you ever heard Moonlight sonata by Beethoven? the game starts off with that song and the dialogue fits in perfectly. You just have to hear it. The music is just incredible. Shadowman also cusses! Yeah!

control: 9/10 Takes some getting used to but so what? You will have it down in 1/2 an hour. One thing I have to mention. Right or left c is your action button (i forgot which one). When you reach some sort of big coffin looking
door, get behind that platform thing and press it (the action button). The door will explode. In these doors, you need a certain amount of dark souls to enter. Don't go looking around for 2 hours like me.

gameplay: 9.7/10 Time to collect some dark souls, and gads and cadeux and skulls and poigens and e'clipser knives and oyyyyyy how many things are there to collect? There are a lot and you will get confused for sure. This just adds to the difficulty. You will have a blast playing this game though.

lasting appeal: 10/10 this game is 70 hours long. each level (though there aren't any levels. The game is non-linear. There are different SECTIONS.) is huge and varied. There are hundreds of things to collect. The game is also extremely hard.

If you are into hard, long adventures, then shadowman is definitely for you. Shadowman is also very dark and moody. Young kids shouldn't play it because of the violence, gore, profanity, suggestive themes, and overall adult like feel. The game will confuse a lot of people and young kids won't know how to play it. Don't be discouraged by the slow pace in the beginning. It is not as bad as you think. Play a couple hours. You'll love it.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 11/10/00, Updated 11/10/00