Demi Review: Shank

Here at Game Like a Girl we like to give games the benefit of the doubt and give them the chance to be awesome before we write them off, but sometimes you can't even get through the demo, which is why we have created the Demi Review.

2D side-scrollers are back. That's cool. But if you are gonna do it, then it need to be more than just a high-res button masher. Unfortunately, and somewhat unsurprisingly, Shank is a full out button-masher.  Sure, at some point I was able to do a pretty sweet move where I pounced on someone and proceeded to stab them repeatedly while simultaneously shooting some other guy, but that gets old after about a minute and half.

I'll give it credit for having unique and consistent art, and maybe I've just spent too much of my time in San Francisco, but the opening sequence looked a lot more like a leather bar than one frequented by bad-ass luchadores (huh? yeah). Evidently at some point there's a lady or two, but where I'm from that many tiny waists, well developed shoulders and well groomed facial hair means something else. Too bad it doesn't take place in my neck of the woods, it would probably be a lot more interesting.