5. Gameplay
Shadows of the Damned plays, in short, a lot like Resident Evil 4. Or at least it plays a lot like a second draft of how Resident Evil 4 probably played before they sent it off for testing and the good people at Capcom addressed all of the bugs and problems that were reported to them. It's a basic, over the shoulder, third-person shooter where the camera sticks rigidly to the side of your character's head. His gun yes, he only has one, but more on that later has a laser sight that can be aimed down, and when you press left or right, Garcia Hotspur doesn't run left or right, but pivots sluggishly on his heels no matter how big the beastie running after him is. The shooting itself is responsive, if not varied, but getting Garcia to go where you want him to isn't one of the easiest things to do. He moves like a lopsided tank whose tracks are bent and rusty. But it doesn't detract too much from the overall experience and, once you learn the limitations of the engine and set about working around them, can actually be quite fun. Some of the boss fights are pretty gnarly, though it's up for grabs how good each one's going to be as they range from the imaginative and brutal to, in one case in particular, a twenty minute fight of attrition during which one mistake is enough to put you in the ground and have to start the whole thing all over again.