When I first saw the concept art for Shank a little over a year ago, the natural artist in me was instantly drawn to the game. I’ve been drawing way before I was able to put words together, of which were nowhere near understandable by humans at the time. Obviously, the look and feel of the artwork was definitely the item that kept me coming back and peeking into the window. Shank appears to adapt some of its style from properties reminiscent of shows I had come to enjoy; shows like Samurai Jack, Justice League of America and Batman Beyond to list a few similarities.
Without a doubt, 
I have enough sketch pads littered about, and if by some Disney magic they could talk, my love affair with this art style would be vetted easily. Trust me, I could put on display, a parade of countless sketches that have resulted in hybrids and half-drawn characters in this style, of whom suffered neglect over soggy Captain Crunch cereal and broken pencil leads. However, artwork alone is not enough to make me want to play a game; game play and the perceived fun factor has a lot to do with it as well. Enough about me already, onward with my review of the Shank demo.
I would most likely be considered what people refer to as an “old-school” gamer. ( I know, I am still talking about me.) My chops were honed on games like Contra-Hard corps, Double Dragon and Streets of Rage. As artifacts go, you might likely find a footprint of mine in the form of a Converse All-Stars sole pattern, somewhere in an abandoned and dusty defunct arcade – evidence enough that I participated in ushering in the coin-op era, but then that would be giving away too much. Nevertheless, Shanks brings back at least for me, some nostalgia as far as pure beat-em ups and hack and slash games of the 80′s go. The game is amazingly fluid, the physics are just right and the action is turned up just enough for you to enjoy what is actually taking place on-screen. Some games are just a mosh pit of sprites, explosions and whatever else that causes most gamers to button mash, as if the game controller is screaming unholy profanities while you’re hopelessly trying to silence it. Subsequently, there is never truly an idea of how or why you survived the melee that ensued. Usually, all that remains is the evidence of the thousands of pieces of debris left over from the things that were trying to kill you, and then it repeats. Thankfully, Shank is nowhere near this.
The beauty of the system is the animated sequences that occur from what seems likely countless button combinations. It’s the animation sequences that draw you deeper into the game, the hero “Shank” seems alive and ready to do your bidding with the push of a button. Pure button smashers will enjoy the reward of the built-in combo system and the on-screen acknowledgement of successful combos during a melee of death and destruction. Early on into the game, you will quickly find out what combination of buttons allow for certain moves, along with which combos are more efficient against the larger, more harder to dispatch of bad guys. Granted, a majority of the baddies don’t drop from the first hit, slice or blast from a bullet, but that alone adds to the insanely paced action that is closing in from both sides of the screen.
I’d have to rank this up there with those games that you play when all you want to do is just jump in, kill some stuff and get out. There are definitely hours of fun to be had, more weapons to discover and even crazier, larger than life characters to face down and destroy.Batman Beyond: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batman_Beyond
Kill Bill: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kill_Bill_Volume_1
