Reviewed: January 30, 2005
Reviewed by: Mark Smith
Publisher
Cenega Publishing
Developer
Black Element Software
Released: October 29, 2004
Genre: Action
Players: 1
ESRB: Mature
8
9
9
8
8.7
System Requirements
Recommended System
Screenshots (Click Image for Gallery)
Shade: Wrath of Angels is yet another action-adventure title to make its way over from the Czech Republic. We’ve actually been sitting on this review for a while, mainly because our original review copy was an import and had a few problems and we wanted to wait for the domestic release.
Even out of the domestic box, Shade exhibits some rather quirky bugs, none of which are game-stopping, but they are rather glaring graphical and gameplay glitches that could potentially spoil your immersion. Thankfully, a patch has been released to fix most of these issues, but as is our policy, this review is for the game “as shipped”. Shade opens with the main character getting a letter from his brother, calling out for help. Seeking his brother out, he arrives in town only to find it abandoned by the living and now haunted by the undead. Quickly, players will find themselves confronted by a new reality, a world to return to order, and a mystery surrounding the aforementioned brother.
Shade oozes presentation from the opening main menu that is overlaid on a 3D scene from the game while the camera moves and spins around the environment. The first time you play the game you are put into the tutorial (future replays you can pick this from the menu), and the tutorial is this very clever “dream sequence” that is a mix of black and white load screens that merge into color.
The tutorial teaches you all the movement basics like running, jumping, and climbing. Much like Splinter Cell you can control your movement speed with the mouse wheel and even sprint for a short burst of speed – useful for jumping large gaps or getting through a timed door.
Also, as the name might imply, lighting is crucial to this game and torches play a huge part of Shade. Some areas of the game are totally dark and you need to navigate treacherous levels only by torchlight. Often, this means crouching so the light shines on the floor. Other times you will need to light other torches or sconces to solve minor puzzles. And all the while your own torch is limited so you have to keep lighting it.
Combat consists of ranged weapons like a pistol or crossbow, and a melee weapon like your angelic sword. Your sword also casts a perpetual glow and can be used to light your way. You can play shade from a first or third-person perspective and each of these combat modes favors a particular perspective.
Our hero has the standard health bar in addition to a magic bar that is used to fuel powerful sword attacks, spells, and also acts as a timer for his demonic form. Yes, you can morph into a powerful demon to move blocks and engage in more powerful combat attacks and spells. The magic bar depletes rapidly but it fills back up on its own if you stand still for a while. You can also locate special glowing cracks in the floor and refuel your meter entirely, but these are few and far between.
There is also a currency system in place. You collect angel tears as you explore the levels and smash everything that is breakable and kill everything that moves. You will eventually stumble upon a magic portal that takes you to a special “shop” where you can spend those tears on demon spells and upgrades for your sword and demon form. This gives the game a little flexibility and allows you to customize the gameplay to your own style of play.
The demon is quite powerful, both in melee and spellcasting, but this is also counteracted by the limited duration you can remain in this form plus his poor movement ability. It’s best to shift into demon form, slash a few enemies or cast a spell then shift back to human form.
Human combat is fun and challenging. There are ranged encounters where you will need to use your pistol. These almost demand a first-person view since you have no targeting sight or any way to accurately aim in third-person. Sword combat is really fun and you can even add special attack combos to your repertoire as the game progresses. These are basically directional combos much like any conventional fighting game. They can be a bit tricky to get the timing down but once you do, look out.
One-on-one combat is no problem but often you will get jumped by 6-8 zombies or even worse and unlike movies where everyone stands around to take turns, here they all beat on you making it imperative that you run away and bait the enemy into fighting you one at a time.
The save system is rather ingenious but certainly no replacement for a save-at-will system that most of us would rather have. In Shade you locate statue pedestals and stand on them to create a statue of yourself, thus saving your game. If you want to resave your game you have to smash the current statue and create a new one. It’s clever, but better suited to console play than PC. The recent patch adds 32 new save positions, which pretty much resolves any possible complaints.
Shade uses a proprietary graphics engine that screams excellence. I daresay I enjoyed the graphics in Shade considerably more than I did in Doom 3. Both games were overly dark, but Shade just has style and excellent lighting and shadows. The first time you walk into that massive church and see the light streaming in through the windows, your jaw will drop.
The engine also creates lifelike physics simulation, rag doll animation, real-time shadows, procedural and animated textures, environment mapping, dynamic lights, dynamic geometry, bezier curves and vertex / pixel shaders for textures that pop off the screen. During the animation while the letter from your brother is being read, the camera pans along this gold etched wall and you can see every bump and reflection in the surface. It’s breathtaking.
The character animation is great with realistic combat moves and lurching zombies, lumbering demon, and all sorts of twisted creatures. These all populate some of the biggest and most detailed fantasy worlds I’ve seen in a game next to Half-Life 2. Screenshots do not do this game justice. Just make sure you have the latest video card with DirectX 9 support for all the special effects.
There are some noteworthy bugs in the shipping version, mainly clipping problems and some issues with the rag doll animation. They can be severe at times but don’t affect the gameplay, only your enjoyment of it. These have since been fixed with a new patch you can download.
The soundtrack in Shade kicks serious ass. Don’t believe me? Go download it. They are offering the complete soundtrack for download in MP3 format and I’m listening to it while I type this review. The music is both haunting and inspirational and there are even some upbeat techno tracks with a Persian flavor. This is one of the few game soundtracks that I listen to outside the game.
The voice work is interesting on multiple levels. There are some really good voiceovers like the opening narration (reading of the letter) and the female angel is awesome, and then you have the dry, almost sarcastic, tone of the main character. He seems indifferent to a lot of things that most of us would be surprised by, but the whole thing comes off as some macho-hero attitude like Serious Sam or Duke Nukem.
More than 500 distinct sound effects make up the massive sound and special effects library. Every environmental effect, footstep, crackling torch, metal clang of blade on steel or thunk of blade on rock is perfectly recreated and placed in stunning 3D detail using advanced EAX technology. If you have an Audigy 2 ZS then be prepared to be surrounded in some terrifyingly real audio.
You can finish the 30 levels of Shade in just under 30 hours, which is pretty hefty on its own. But then you can factor in difficulty levels and multiple endings and you just might be tempted to play the game again. Plus, the angel tears are limited and there is no way to try all the spells on a single pass, so you could really change your entire style of play on future replays.
I’ve seen some pretty bad reviews for this game and all I can say is, “I don’t know what they were playing”. This game rocks from the opening tutorial to the final credits. Visually, it’s more stunning than nearly anything that released last year and the spooky sounds and kickin’ soundtrack are second to none.
The gameplay doesn’t’ reinvent the third-person genre, but it does mix things up with more than 30 weapons, dozens of spells, 20 types of monsters, and a compelling story. The ability to shape shift into a powerful demon is just icing on the cake. If you’re looking for a few good scares or just want to feel oddly uncomfortable for a week then check out Shade: Wrath of Angles.