Shadows of the Damned New Trailer

[Pao]

http://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzNkfjoUhaI
Looks Brilliant!

There is some details regarding the gameplay from recent hands-ons:

If you thought Grasshopper Manufacture was "selling out" by making a third-person shooter, of all things, with EA Partners, of all people, you need not worry about such a thing. Having played Shadows of the Damned for about 20 minutes, I can confirm that it is a true Grasshopper game, full of the punk rock style, weird humor, brash, sexy women (one of whom wears mechanical devices on her arms and legs, and causes earthquakes when she dances), and over-the-top melee violence you'd expect from Suda 51's studio.

It just has better production values.

Those weapons include the "boner," a pistol that shoots bones

The "darkness" gameplay hook is a strong one, and adds a puzzle element not usually seen in Grasshopper action games. Also unusual for Suda action games: this level of polish. There didn't seem to be any rough edges in the gameplay -- which, even Suda superfans will admit are usually present. This time, the quirks are all intentional.

Shadows of the Damned threw Garcia right into combat. The level opened in an area enveloped by darkness. Monsters lunged towards Garcia, but under the cover of darkness these undead creatures were invulnerable. In the distance I saw a goat head and shot it to turn on the lights. A cloud of darkness still covered the enemies and deflected bullets. Before you can kill anything you need to hit it directly with light. All three of Garcia's guns (a pistol, shotgun, and machinegun) can fire a photon blast with the right bumper. This doesn't take up any ammunition, so you can blindly fire light blasts if you like. Now defenseless, these monsters can be executed with a headshot. Land one and Shadows of the Damned's camera follows a bullet the bullet so players can see the carnage.

I got used to the rhythm quickly - left trigger (LT) to draw you weapon, move the right stick to aim (a Resident Evil 4 style laser lets you know where you're firing), hit the right bumper (RB) to shoot light, and pull the right trigger (RT) to open fire. The left bumper makes Garcia take a swig of absinthe because alcohol is the only way to restore health in hell. After drinking it, Garcia's vision and the screen blurs for a few seconds.

Grasshopper Manufacture hid plenty of items for players to find. Smash fences just outside the critical path and players can find extra items. Posters are also scattered through levels, like the one for "Strawberry Sh*tcake" I discovered. You can read one of these by pressing the X button, which has Garcia and Johnson, his shapeshifting demon gun gab about hell. A representative from Electronic Arts explained these posters tell players more about the world Grasshopper Manufacture created for Shadows of the Damned.

I blasted through more demons and reached one of the game's puzzles. While the darkness tends to be Garcia's enemy, you also need it at times. That pubic hair covered door mentioned earlier only opens when darkness covers it. I shot a goat head to turn out the lights and the darkness spread through the room like a miasma. Demons emerged when it touched corpses, but I couldn't defeat them. The only defense Garcia has is his melee attack, which him push the demons away with Johnson transformed as a torch. After climbing a few ladders, I found the darkness core, which looked something like a Venus fly trap. Garcia shoved a brain inside it to stop the flow.

Then I ran into a woman named Justine started singing. Johnson, scared as usual, chattered his teeth. She called a giant monster with a gem on its back to attack Garcia. I wasn't sure if it was a mid-boss, but this monster put up more of a fight. It dashed at Garcia forcing me to use his dodge roll. However, like your run of the mill demon the same attack strategy works. Hit the large demon with light to stun it and expose its weak point, the gem on its back. Right before this battle, I started using the shotgun. At close range, it can kill most demons with one shot. Two shotgun blasts to the gem later and the giant demon was defeated.

the game featuring a light/dark dynamic in an attempt to distinguish itself from run-of-the-mill third-person shooters. Darkness is death for Garcia in Shadows of the Damned, with any extended forays into unlit areas of the game causing Garcia's health bar to slowly diminish. On the flip side, darkness is a boon for the various hellacious beasties in Shadows of the Damned, meaning that Garcia will have to manipulate the environment and use appropriate weapons to level the playing field.

To even stand a chance against these zombies, Garcia first needed to dispel the darkness, which you can do by finding goat head statues somewhere in the environment. Shooting these goat heads will repel the dark from the surrounding area, and while the head in this level was easy to spot, EA reps showing off the game said that goats in later levels will be well hidden in order to ramp up the tension as players desperately try to find them.

The demon Paula convulsed and then literally split apart in the middle, revealing a huge, blood-soaked demon armed with large metal bars strapped to his arms. Every time this monster moved, a harmonica could be heard, and an EA rep stated that this particular boss had swallowed the small instrument (apparently all bosses in the game will have unique backstories, and we're particularly interested to hear about this one's). The gameplay demo then ended with the large boss charging his way to Garcia.

Shadows of the Damned certainly looks like it will have more than its share of gore and fun, but we also liked the wicked sense of humour that seemed to permeate the game. Johnson was quite a funny sidekick, and some of the incidental details that we learned about hell (such as the fact that strawberries are, apparently, actually made from blood and are a practical joke the demon world plays on humans) were a nice touch. We'll have more on this promising action horror title in the lead up to its release on June 7 this year.