Buy Shank

I am genuinely impressed with Shank - a great old school action brawler with a story straight out of the Kill Bill movies. The action is very clean and fluid. It offers some basic combo moves, fitting weapons, and a few other pleasant surprises. On the downside, it only takes about 2-3 hours to complete the game on normal difficulty. Although it is an enjoyable 2-3 hours of non-stop action. http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=591742492 http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=591631294 Unlocked all achievements!

When I started playing Shank I'd been already familiar with Klei Entertainment - their game, Mark of The Ninja, is one of my favourites and it is among those where I have 100% achievement completion. Of course, MoTN only came out 2 years later, therefore, I expected Shank would have its shortcomings.

Now, Shank is a fast-paced, action-packed side-scroller that reminds us of the good-old beat 'em up games from the arcade era. We proceed from one screen to the other while getting rid of dozens of enemies and eventually coming to a boss battle. At our disposal we have melee weapons (chainsaw!) and some firearms. While nothing fancy, making combos with all of our available items is pretty cool in the heat of battle especially when enemies are pouring in from every which way!

The game has cutscenes between the levels and a great accompanying soundtrack. While short (can be completed in a couple of hours), for hardcore gamers the hard mode is available offering an extra challenge by completely removing the checkpoints.

There are 2 things that make Shank stand out. First, we immediately notice that the game has a comic book art style - this was later used to make MoTN happen and Shank also has a sequel with similar graphics style. Now, the 2nd and perhaps most interesting is the excessive gore / violence the game uses.

I found it a bit too much at times - I admit this is the game's style but even the cutscenes have some pretty gory scenes for no apparent reason. I understand the game later on underwent an upgrade and as a result of that some of the more violent scenes were removed / edited including some nudity.

Don't go looking for a story here as you do not really have one. This is Shank's tale of revenge against his previous employer but it really is just a basis for killing a whole bunch of enemies (they never really elaborate on the story). This is not necessarily a problem as you are here for the chainsaw! :)

To summarise: Shank is a decent beat 'em up from Klei Entertainment which offers a couple of hours of entertainment if you do not really have any other game at your disposal. I look forward to completing its sequel! This is an easy pick-up - especially when discounted - just remember to use a controller!

You said you wanted a hack and slash side scroller with huge combos and a variety of weapons? Well thats what I thought you said, so I recommended Shank. In shank you use light attacks, heavy attacks, and fast attacks to build combo chains. Each attack uses a different weapon and there are multiple weapons to find, so far I have found myself using a variety of shank, chainsaw, pistol, and shotgun attacks. However I also have been using grenades and super heavy weapons e.g. the minigun whenever the situation calls for it.

Now as you might have figured out there is quite a bit of variety in the ways you can kill enemys, thank goodness too, because otherwise the game would get boring pretty fast. Really there is not much else to shank besides playing through the story and moving on to Shank 2 if you liked what you just played. I would recommend this game to fans of sidescrollers and maybe even fans of hack and slash.

Great Beat'Em Up with good and dynamic combat and kickass music.
The story and design of characters/stages are all B-Movie style and this is great cause the story is a nice side dish for the main course that is Shank 1.
If you want a simple but effective beat em up to play then Shank is for you, the only problem is that the Co-op is only Local so watch out for that.

You killed Shank's precious person = YOU PAY WITH YOUR LIFE! Chainsaw time!

9/10 for the fun time, and short story.