Shadow Warrior 2

It is a fantastic example of how to combine the numbers-driven loot game with a top class FPS, and Lo Wang should be chainsawing his way into the annals of FPS history. Plus it also has music by Stan Bush. What more could you want from a blood-soaked, irreverent, funny and frantic shooter?

Shadow Warrior 2 is amazing. The shift from linear to semi-open-world shooter hasn't hurt the game since the action remains constant and adheres to the classic shooter style over the more modern one. The multitude of new weapons gives the game some variety, even when taking artifacts into account, and the solid combat ties everything together into a very enjoyable package, whether you're going solo or cooperatively. It ranks up there with Doom as one of the best pure shooters of the year and one of the best timed exclusives on the PC in this genre.

Action-packed retro shooter with a huge arsenal of weapons, lot's of customization and ribald humor.

Shadow Warrior 2’s self-referential toilet humour, insanely stylistic combat, bounty of loot and jaw dropping visuals, add up to a thoroughly entertaining and silly game full of gory combat, dick jokes and impressive weaponry. It’s great fun if you’re not in the market from something serious.

Great mix of mindlessly entertaining action and a primitive RPG works brilliantly thanks to a sensitively created design. It offers truly countless ways to kill enemies, great feeling from the fights and the flawless technical state of game. Little things, such as the slightly repetitive environments or a bit unbalanced difficulty can be forgiven without a blink of an eye.

It may be neither the numbers-haven that Path of Exile is, nor the speedrun-viable shooter than the new DOOM is, but Shadow Warrior 2 strikes an excellent balance between the two; there’s loads of ways to customize your play style and oodles of loot to keep you entertained, but there’s a really robust shooter underneath—something I feel it does much better than Borderlands, if I’m honest.

Shadow Warrior 2 is a beautiful, fast-paced shooter with a ton of guns. There's an RPG-like layer of additional skills and extensive weapon customization, a great cast of characters, and nothing to get in the way of pure reckless shooting. And when you're done with the campaign, there's four difficulty levels, New Game+, and co-op play waiting for you.

Shadow Warrior 2 is a smart evolution of the solid framework established in the first game. Bigger guns, nastier enemies, grander levels and more friends means more Wang for everybody.

FPS fans, Shadow Warrior 2 is just brilliant, dumb, fun. You won’t regret investing your time and money in o this raunchy and a bit outrageous shooter, believe me.

Wang's stupid wisecracks kept me smiling from start to finish, and the variety of melee and ranged combat and the loot that dropped from it was satisfying enough that I came back with friends for more. It's great fun in solo or in co-op, and its small degree of randomization is enough to keep the action fresh for at least a few runs.

This welcome latest return to the Wang Cave offers a delicious dose of explosive, old school action. [Dec 2016, p.74]

Despite an imperfect procedural generation algorithm and some technical issues, SW2 is a fun game, thanks to its solid gameplay and a great co-op mode.

Shadow Warrior 2 is a magic slaughterhouse that every fan of trash and gore will love unconditionally. The crazy number of weapons and power-up guarantees an unlimited number of approaches to the battle. Alone or with a friend the fun is assured, pick up your katana and a big backpack for all the others death instruments, and go to teach who is the Wang to all the deamons on your way.

Shadow Warrior 2 a is brilliant bundle of slice and dicing fun, and being that I’m someone who was massively unimpressed by Flying Wild Hog’s debut title Hard Reset, I gotta give credit to them for improving so drastically over just a few years.

Bigger, better and funnier than original game, Shadow Warrior 2 is a fantastic action game with the style of the old school games. It's cooperative mode is an amazing add.

Flying Wild Hog's new game has some stuff that could have been done better but the amount of good things is simply overwhelming. Shadow Warrior 2 embodies visceral combat, RPG elements, pretty graphics and humor. This is a worthy entry to the "really cool shooter" category and can boldly stand right next to Doom. Hopefully we'll get Shadow Warrior 3 sooner than later.

Shadow Warrior 2 continues the great surprise that was the first one and the comeback of this name, offering pure, unadulterated FPS essence.

Shadow Warrior 2 is what the series is about. Lo Wang, humor, violence, a bit of crafting and RPGish things to get you wandering around, more violence, chopping, and gallons of blood. Would chop again!

Lo Wang’s run-and-gun excursion doesn’t want to be anything else but a classic shoot-em-up with cocky one-liners and bucketloads of blood. And hell, does it succeed. Duke Nukem would be proud.

An overall solid sequel and a great game, with some evolutionary game design from previous titles in the series that may or may not appeal to you.

SW2 is fun from the beginning to the end. If you like old-school shooters and you want to try something that is not an FPS, give this one an opportunity.

Lewd, crude, and possibly dangerous to know, Shadow Warriors 2 is nonetheless a rollicking first person shooter full of boomsticks and gibs.

Breathtaking action pays a tribute to the legends of the genre and delights with gameplay and style. RPG elements are just the top of the fun-layered cake. [Issue #269]

They say first impression matters the most. In case of Shadow Warrior 2 this first impression is terrific and lasts almost to the end credits. [12/2016, p.52]

A sequel that improves upon nearly everything, providing tremendous amounts of fun for a not so tremendous price. 

Lo Wang is back! Shadow Warrior 2 improved the aspects that made its predecessor such a good game to create an even better game in a gorgeous setting. The co-op feature does not work optimally yet, but it is still great fun to hack and slash with others.

Considering its mid-tier price point, Shadow Warrior 2 is a pretty astounding value, with a lengthy, breathless, and goofy campaign — also playable in coop — that provides an incredible amount of fun for less money than some of its full-priced shooter brethren.

Shadow Warrior 2 is a fast, gorgeous shooter with smart loot components, trapped inside a world and age that lost its luster ages ago. Where the core gameplay still feels fantastic, the story, world and mission structure gradually drag it down short of being a successor to the grandeur of its predecessor. An excellent shooter that could have used 99 percent less Wang.

Playing Shadow Warrior 2 was like hand-delivering a gift to 14-year-old self. Maybe I should think that’s a bad thing, but I don’t. Despite a few flaws with pacing and level design, there are few games that have made me feel as much of an unstoppable god of death as I did in my time here.

Shadow Warrior 2 is a fantastic game that meshes what I love about loot games with the ridiculously fast-paced combat of 90s shooters. It is unapologetic, it is ridiculous, but most importantly, it is 12 tons of dumb fun. I couldn’t stop smiling while playing, and that is a sign of a really good game. Get some Wang, you won’t regret it.

Shadow Warrior 2 is one of the best action games we seen in a while. The game combines pure gore with a nice sense of humor.

Shadow Warrior 2 is much like its predecessor: a gore-spattered first person kill-fest interspersed with lowest-rung lowest brow humour. Both of these elements are executed to excess, giving us a game that is equal parts head and eye-rolling. Still, it never stops entertaining if you have a taste for it.

Shadow Warrior is back with more weapons, procedurally generated maps, online co-op and more fortune cookies. Something could have been done better, but the overall experience is worth a ride if you love chaos, fast paced action and 80s humor.

Shadow Warrior 2 is a great sequel. Even irritating dialogues and jokes can't hide the fact, that the combat is simply great and enjoyable. Every fan of dynamic shooting -- and slashing -- should definitely spend some time with the game.

Its gameplay dynamics are so well executed that it could walk among this year's biggest games. If you're looking for a fun online co-op game to play with friends, this might just be the game for you. Just don't go in expecting a satisfying story.

Shadow Warrior 2 arrives with very powerful gameplay, more explicit violence and a story that is longer than the player would expect coming from a kind of game like this.

A worthy successor to the 2013 reboot. Flying Wild Hog obviously put more work into some of the gameplay systems for the game, while keeping the original's great combat system and charm. If you're up for some bloody fast-paced first person combat, this ultimate power trip won't disappoint.

Putting aside the technical complaints, Shadow Warrior 2 is legitimately one of the best shooters of 2016 thus far. From its quick, snappy gun and sword combat to its satisfying Diablo-style loot system, this is the type of game that players will find themselves coming back to whenever they’re seeking a good time. Yes, it’s blatantly trying to be offensive in the dumbest ways possible (lest we forget, your character’s name is Lo Wang), but its self-awareness has a way of bringing a smile to your face.

Picking off enemies one-by-one with a railgun, demolishing them point-blank with a shotgun, and ripping through them with a chainsaw are just a few of the exciting moments that make it hard to put down. However, if you want to experience its action-packed highs, then disregard its groan-inducing lows and skip the cutscenes.

An insane amount of co-op fun, but the level design is lacking. The loot-centric Shadow Warrior 2 is well worth the buy, but doesn’t quite soar as high as this year’s Doom.

Shadow Warrior 2’s combat is gleefully expressive and varied, but undermined by tired, dated humor.

Wang is back, accompanied by 70 weapons, new enemies and a more free experience. A great action game damaged by its repetitiveness in levels & mechanics.

Flying Wild Hog tries really hard to modernize the shooter series, while the heart of it is still the same. There are indeed new elements that offer a new experience, but they are also distracting from the shooting action. Unfortunately the story is not great, which makes Shadow Warrior 2 an okay but not excellent game.

A bold evolution of a tested formula. Shadow Warrior 2 is fun when played with friends but somewhat chaotic and disappointing when tangled with alone.

Bullets simply don’t cause enough damage for shooting to feel fun: you can unload an entire magazine into some random mob point-blank, and there’s no guarantee it’ll do as much as make it flinch. After a while you realize that you’re not even watching the action anymore, your gaze is fixated solely on enemy healthbar at the top of the screen. On the other hand, bows, shotguns and grenade launchers do pack satisfying bang – they’re not much better in terms of DPS, but fire slowly enough for each shot to deal respectable damage to enemy ranks. [Issue#214, p.64]

The frenzy of the fighting is penalized by the new mechanics concerning the management of the character and the equipment, buy the excesses of the game that remained the same of the valid reboot published three years ago.

The the gameplay is amazing, it is an absolute blast to play, but it felt like Shadow Warrior 2 could have been so much more.

If you've got a PC that can handle it, Shadow Warrior 2 is a fantastic bloody game. If you love yourself a good, over-the-top action video game that brings to mind the ridiculous (but enjoyable) action flicks of the 70's and 80's, then the Shadow Warrior franchise is not to be missed.

Shadow Warrior 2’s excellent combat mechanics cleave through its weak story and over-abundance of iffy loot. The result is a title that’s incredibly satisfying to play, almost in spite of the surrounding flaws.

The ability to dash around each enemy individually and slice them to pieces using the wonderfully hilarious procedural gore system is endlessly satisfying.

It says a lot when Shadow Warrior 2 is only the second best 3D Realms game out this week, and the other is yet another remaster of Duke Nukem 3D. Despite loving the first game I could not get along with this sequel, with both single-player and co-op feeling lacking in different ways.

Definite flaws and a laser focus on making the game a more universally sellable experience hurt it, but if you want to shoot shit while shooting the shit with some buddies, you could do a lot worse.

Shadow Warrior 2 is a mix of fun, violence and nervousness. Big guns, big blades and nastier enemies, it's the perfect combo for making a good Shadow Warrior game.

Brilliant in hour-long doses, Shadow Warrior 2 doesn’t have the depth or variety in its core gameplay to hold your interest for hours at a time. The procedurally generated levels affect the flow and pacing of the missions, while all those ultra-violent battles become samey after a while.

Improvements to combat and a raft of new visual gags don’t make up for Shadow Warrior 2's flaccid story and aimless levels.

The reboot, in spite of its dumb writing, felt fresh and was consistently entertaining throughout its campaign thanks to its focus. The sequel, however, feels stretched out, like it’s trying to be an RPG, an open-world game, and a shooter all at once with little success. In the end, there’s precious little of Shadow Warrior 2 that makes for a compelling experience.

Fun and frantic, but soon grows tiresome. [Issue#181, p.78]

In the end, Shadow Warrior 2 isn’t a bad game, it’s just not a really good one, either. It delivers a laugh or two, but in a few years, I’ll struggle to remember that I even played it. Pick it up during a sale or during a dry spell in the new release schedule, but there are plenty of other titles more deserving of attention at the moment.

If you’re a fan of juvenile jokes or simply looking for something that feels like an off-brand Deadpool, it may be perfect for you. Still, with technical issues and a flat story, the $39.99 price on Steam feels like a bit of a reach.