THE LORD OF DEADSIDE IS BACK

Shadow Man on Nintendo 64 was probably the first game that could be considered horror in any sense. To a kid who was under the age of ten, Shadow Man was terrifying even though I was playing it with my father. Returning to the game nearly two decades after I first experienced it, I still understand why the game scared me as a kid and what this game did to stick in my mind so well for so long.

A brief overview of Shadow Man is that in 1992 Valiant Comics introduced a new series called Shadowman (with no space) which starred Jack Boniface as the titular Shadowman. Shadowman was a supernatural superhero who wore the Mask of Shadows, made by voodoo practitioners, to get his powers. The comic did extremely well and in 1996 Acclaim (the video game company) bought Valiant and turned them into Acclaim Comics. Under this brand they would reboot the series as Shadow Man (with a space) and adapt it into video games alongside other Valiant titles such as Turok, Armorines and that X-O Manowar/Iron Man game. This version of Shadow Man starred Michael LeRoi brought back to life by voodoo priestess Mama Nettie who implanted the Mask of Shadows into his chest. Michael wants to find his dead brother in Deadside and stop evil from taking over. There are subtle nods to the original Shadowman series but there’s little need to read that series to enjoy what is on offer in this game.

PLATFORMS: PC, CONSOLES COMING SOON
MSRP: $19.99
PRICE I’D PAY: $19.99

Shadow Man is an action adventure game not dissimilar to the 3D Legend of Zelda games from the same time of its initial release, with the world separated into smaller free roaming areas with certain places locked off by abilities and collectibles albeit with a far more adult oriented design. It strays a bit from Zelda’s blueprint however in the sense that it also has clearly taken cues from collect-a-thons as well because there is a lot to collect in Shadow Man, and it is required to finish the game.

Here’s where my first, and only, complaint comes in: this game needs a map. Not even necessarily one that gives the player their exact location but just a floorplan of the world so I could, in theory, get my bearings based on the shapes of rooms and landmarks. The amount of times I found myself wandering back and forth because I had clearly gone down a certain path only to find I didn’t have the right item to continue was embarrassing. The reliance on gating progress behind dark souls is also annoying which again could be negated with a basic map system where I could mentally check off the rooms I’ve been to. Shadow Man’s world is labyrinthine and weaves in and out of itself in ways that are meant to disorient the player which I suppose made sense in 1999 when that was the peak of game design, but the original game came with a map that locates all the key items that is drawn in a way that it looks like the voodoo art inside the game making it fairly useless and suggests buying the strategy guide on the reverse side of it. Cheeky.

My kingdom for a map.

But I digress, Shadow Man Remastered plays extremely well and renders almost every other version obsolete. One of the key differences to other action adventure games of the time is that Michael can hold a distinct item in each hand, each having their own trigger button, meaning that Michael can shoot his Shadow Gun in one hand while casting voodoo magic on the other. This also means however that to grab ledges and ropes both hands will need to be free leaving Michael vulnerable to attack. These just weren’t concepts that were being explored a lot on consoles in the 90s and seeing how well they work now shows me that the original team behind Shadow Man did a great job thinking outside of the box. The platforming can be hit or miss though and that’s purely because the camera always needs to stay behind Michael, so the best the player gets is how far the camera is away from him.

Nightdive Studios has done some of their best work here, not only remastering the visuals (not remaking them to be clear) and optimizing controls which is extremely important, but restoring content not found in any of the game’s original releases, adding secrets, and basically amalgamating all the parts of the releases into one collected package. It’s been so long since I played the original and the content blends together so well that if it weren’t for the Digital Foundry video breaking down all the changes I would have just assumed I forgot new portions like I did other parts of the game. The remaster also has a film grain filter on by default and usually I’m unimpressed but it works here really well, and that could be due to the fact that the slight motion of the grain looks appropriate on the grimey, industrial hellscapes which have never looked more disgusting and I say that as a compliment. The Ed Gein wet dream hell hole that is Dead Side has never looked better.

However, it would be remiss not to mention the sound of Shadow Man. All the voice acting is great, with Redd Pepper’s performance as Michael and Barry Meade as Jaunty being the stand outs. There is an effect on the voices of those in Deadside that is done buying reversing the audio track, adding an echo, and then reversing the track that gives this otherworldly sound to Deadside’s inhabitants. Michael’s brother Luke still bothers me due to this very simple audio trick. Also the soundtrack is made of nightmares. Tim Haywood’s music for the whole game is this dark ambient industrial sound but then you get to the playrooms and there’s the sound of… something… being drilled… I’ll leave it at that.

Shadow Man Remastered is a great game and I hope those with fond memories enjoy it as much I do. I hope those unfamiliar will give this a shot as well because while this is a game from the 90s it feels very modern in the controls. A simple walkthrough will help stop any unnecessary wandering and backtracking is necessary for completion so I say use that walkthrough guilt free. For $20 there’s a lot of game here, so skip the basic port Nightdive previously put out and do not buy the old console versions because they cost close to $20 and they don’t run as well. This is the definitive version of Shadow Man and I hope that maybe… just maybe… Nightdive figures out how to remaster Shadow Man: 2econd Coming (and fix its horrible title).

Review copy of game provided by publisher.