Shank! It's stabby time!

[Tanukitsune]

I'm surprised there wasn't a thread for this game already!

Shank is a 2D animated piece of badassery... I'm not sure if I should call it a brawler, it has so many weapon it's almost like a 2D God of War, it's a bit in the grey territory, but I'll call it a brawler because it has no RPG stats?

Anyway, it's animated in flash, but you wouldn't notice... It's the basic story of revenge and as you progress you learn more of what happened to Shank and you meet the people Shank must defeat to be avenged, it's not that original, but it's decent enough to not be spoiled.

After the look of the game, the real sauce of the game is the combat. I've played a TON of brawler like games, and when I saw that the enemies had lots of guns, I thought it would like the broken mess that was the Dishwasher thingie, but it WORKS! Shank has knives as his quick attack, a gun that doesn't do much damage but keeps enemies at bay and... A FREAKING CHAINSAW! Yep, this game is pretty violent, although not too gory, except some cutscenes...

Did I mention you get a hockey wielding blood covered costume if you kill enough enemies with your chainsaw? :B

They also got the difficulty pretty tightly balanced, while you have no lives, you start at the last checkpoint and the enemies are your typical brawler thugs that just change costume depending on the area you're in, but the variety is pretty big for a brawler and you'll never get tired of seeing the enemy too many times! And they are always manageable, even the giant shield wielding thugs if you know what you're doing...

As you progress you'll get new weapons, but frankly, I think the ones you get at the start of the game are the best.

As for the bosses, they are completely different from normal thugs as normal attack barely damage them, they all have a point when they are vulnerable, by either tricking them into ramming into wall of blocking at a precise moment, or something similar....

If Scott Pilgrim is the best brawler on XBLA and PSN, this is the runner up... which unfortunately nobody will play BECAUSE of Scott Pilgrim!

[Murdoc]

Yep, as soon as I get my ps3 connected back on the net I hope to check this out.

Price tag feels a bit steep though... more so because I know I'll play it once and put it down.

But I do appreciate the art and quality that seems to be put into this, it's the kind of indy game I'd love to make one day(not brawler, just a professional/fresh looking game)

[Denial]

I've ... kind of finished Scott Pilgrim (as in, levelled to 16 with the four characters and

Negascott, and unlocked Mr. Chau

), so I'm pretty much in line for some more 2D goodness. I've been interested in this for a while... looking forward to playing it.

Edited August 26, 2010 by Denial

[syntheticgerbil]

This is nice tween animation and all, but I completely hate this style of art direction and character design. I imagine it'll appeal nicely to those who like Penny Arcade's style mixed with Venture Brothers.

But I'll shut up since I think Idlethumbs consists of people who unanimously love Penny Arcade.

Game could be fun too I suppose? Climbing walls and using a shank. I'm buying Castle Crashers soon though.

[Kolzig]

I've been following this project for quite some time and have been thinking about buying it in Steam. I think I read that the PC release has been postponed so also this one goes to the consoles first.

I hope the same thing doesn't happen with Shank as with DeathSpank that the PC release never comes.

[syntheticgerbil]

I definitely think PC releases of smaller games like this would help them strive and sell more units, so I don't know why companies seem so hesitant.

I mean, you have less chance of being pirated if you release on Steam only, correct?

[Thompson]

I definitely think PC releases of smaller games like this would help them strive and sell more units, so I don't know why companies seem so hesitant.

I mean, you have less chance of being pirated if you release on Steam only, correct?

If World of Goo taught me anything it's that no matter how you try to release your shit if it's on the PC platform it's going to be pirated. PERIOD.

[Patters]

If World of Goo taught me anything it's that no matter how you try to release your shit if it's on the PC platform it's going to be pirated. PERIOD.

World of Goo was released in the worst way possible. The best indie release system recently would likely go to Minecraft.

Also Shank looks pretty cool.

[Tanukitsune]

So, I'm practically the only one who bought it? Dang...

[Patters]

So, I'm practically the only one who bought it? Dang...

I'm going to, once I have the opportunity to buy some points, one of the reasons I prefer Steam.

[syntheticgerbil]

If World of Goo taught me anything it's that no matter how you try to release your shit if it's on the PC platform it's going to be pirated. PERIOD.

Please don't say period like that. It's too bro for me.

[Thompson]

Please don't say period like that. It's too bro for me.

Alright, I want say peroid like that anymore. PERIOD.

[syntheticgerbil]

SHANK EXCLAMATION!

[twmac]

Love this game, but I refuse to pay 1200 MSP for it.

[Murdoc]

How much is 1200 msp?

[CaptainFish]

15 USD, although I have no idea if they actually scale pricing for other countries' currencies based on the current exchange rate.

[Kolzig]

If World of Goo taught me anything it's that no matter how you try to release your shit if it's on the PC platform it's going to be pirated. PERIOD.

Well... they got money from me twice. Once on PC through their own website and once on Wiiware.

[elmuerte]

I think it's better than Scott Pilgrim, at least from a gameplay perspective. It feels more than I am in control and that the character responds to my button mashing.

But I am missing some some background noise. For example, the intro. It was just way to silent.

[Psych]

So far I've played through just three levels of co-op. So far my impressions are that the story is garbage, but the brawling is bliss. It's super fast and chaotic just like a good brawler should be, if not for a couple odd difficulty spikes it'd be perfect.

[Salacious Snake]

Shank is the kind of game that's more fun if you're the kind of player who likes to make his or her own fun by mixing shit up. With all the combat moves and weapons at Shank's disposal, you can really get stylish with the combos, but the game doesn't reward you much for it.

Back at PAX East I got a demo from Jamie Cheng, and he told me that the damage scales so that it's more effective if you mix up your attacks instead of doing the same thing over and over, but in playing through the game, I didn't get the sense that this was happening, at least not to a significant degree.

And yes, the difficulty spikes are a bitch. It seems like the boss fights in particular weren't play tested much, especially in the cooperative campaign. Cooperative is fun anyway, just because beating up dudes with a friend is always better, but the game isn't really suited to it.

All of the dialogue made me want to shotgun a can of drano.

In spite of all these gripes, I should say that I enjoyed the game. The ass-kicking is good enough that it outweighs the problems for me. I gave it an 8/10, for whatever that's worth. Hurr.

[Irishjohn]

I think it's better than Scott Pilgrim, at least from a gameplay perspective. It feels more than I am in control and that the character responds to my button mashing.

That sounds promising to me. I downloaded Scott Pilgrim because my girlfriend agreed to play it with me after seeing the movie. I had forgotten how much fun beat-em-ups can be. I'm more interested in Shank as a result.

[Tanukitsune]

Difficulty spikes? The only really difficult boss was the final one, which wasn't that hard once you got the hang of him?

[Salacious Snake]

The boss fights are either way too easy or too annoying. Most of the time, once you see the pattern, you're at no risk of taking any harm, and you just have to wait around for the right attack conditions, and it requires no skill to execute whatsoever.

Others are a pain in the ass, largely because of how Shank's moves were designed more to look cool than be functional, so he'll get locked in way too much animation when you need him to act fast. The masked wrestler guy with the exploding barrels in 2-player mode is infuriating, because you have a tiny window of time in which to shoot a thing a bunch of times, but the shooting animations, fire rates and ammo counts of all the guns act against you in one way or another.

I found most of the cooperative boss fights irritating as hell.

There's no reasonable difficulty curve. You'll get something hard, and then it goes back to dead easy when it seems like it should be harder. It's just poorly tuned that way.