This review contains spoilers
Spoilered because it gets gross.
I'm going into this Backloggd thing with the goal of honing in how I look at video games critically. One of the things I'm seeing is that games I score this low are abject failures of some caliber. Maybe they are amusing in how thoroughly they fail. Maybe they completely and thoroughly befuddle me in their failure. And maybe they just pissed me off. Shaq Fu 2 is definitely the latter category.
I am all for the idea of a self-aware successor to a bad meme game. I only know the original Shaq Fu by reputation, but it's the perfect candidate for this sort of thing. I legitimately was excited for this - not enough to buy it, but enough to rent it from the video store for a weekend playthrough. I looked forward to seeing what they'd do this time around, especially since they were treating this one like a soft reboot.
So the setup is that Shaq was discovered by a Chinese peasant woman, Baby Moses style. He's destined to be the chosen one, so a martial arts master trains him. Shaq gets his chance to fulfill his destiny as a young adult, when a pack of demons disguised as celebrities try to take over the world.
Decent enough setup, okay. I will admit, I very rarely am able to get into celebrity parodies. I'm generally not in touch enough with mainstream pop culture to get these sorts of references while they're relevant. As a consequence, by the time I get to a celebrity parody, it usually feels super outdated. I think some of these were dated on release - even I know that 2018 was late for Justin Bieber and Mel Gibson circa Braveheart parodies - but some stuff like the Trump parody would have been contemporary. So while I personally feel that something like a Trump parody is something destined to feel dated (and I know it doesn't seem like it somedays; just give it time), I get if that's your thing. Entirely fair.
But, like... I fucking hate this game's sense of humor? Like the mentor figure's an old gay pervert who sexually harassed teen Shaq, the Chinese village ("Hunglo"; I know that's likely to be a Shadow Warrior shout-out as much as anything, but still) is littered with washing machines and conical hat stores, the game reached for a nonbinary "assuming my gender" joke then later has the lamest comedic takes I've seen on Nazis and Klansmen...
All that's the low-effort shit. What about high effort? Well, for one, there's the Kim Kardashian parody, who turns into a giant floating ass with wriggling cellulite, and it attacks by having violent taco shits, which the game giddily describes as "Brownbeard's Revenge".
There is basically nothing for me to like here. I don't find the moveset or power-ups interesting, I don't find the levels interesting, the gameplay animation is either basic or gross, the plot basically devolves into crass and crude edgy and referential humor without any real heart or charm. There are no unique mechanics or meaningful challenges, nothing that iterates upon the genre or acts as more than a momentary distraction. You get endless retries, so just get back up and go. No multiplayer, either. Just grind out the game, put it back in its jewel case, and put it away forever.
I'm not gonna pretend I'm the end-all-be-all authority to what does and doesn't make for good media. If you liked this game, man, I'm not gonna tell you you can't. I'm just saying, this was thoroughly not what I'm looking for in a video game.
...it is kind of cute that Icy Hots heal you. I'll give the game that.
I'm going into this Backloggd thing with the goal of honing in how I look at video games critically. One of the things I'm seeing is that games I score this low are abject failures of some caliber. Maybe they are amusing in how thoroughly they fail. Maybe they completely and thoroughly befuddle me in their failure. And maybe they just pissed me off. Shaq Fu 2 is definitely the latter category.
I am all for the idea of a self-aware successor to a bad meme game. I only know the original Shaq Fu by reputation, but it's the perfect candidate for this sort of thing. I legitimately was excited for this - not enough to buy it, but enough to rent it from the video store for a weekend playthrough. I looked forward to seeing what they'd do this time around, especially since they were treating this one like a soft reboot.
So the setup is that Shaq was discovered by a Chinese peasant woman, Baby Moses style. He's destined to be the chosen one, so a martial arts master trains him. Shaq gets his chance to fulfill his destiny as a young adult, when a pack of demons disguised as celebrities try to take over the world.
Decent enough setup, okay. I will admit, I very rarely am able to get into celebrity parodies. I'm generally not in touch enough with mainstream pop culture to get these sorts of references while they're relevant. As a consequence, by the time I get to a celebrity parody, it usually feels super outdated. I think some of these were dated on release - even I know that 2018 was late for Justin Bieber and Mel Gibson circa Braveheart parodies - but some stuff like the Trump parody would have been contemporary. So while I personally feel that something like a Trump parody is something destined to feel dated (and I know it doesn't seem like it somedays; just give it time), I get if that's your thing. Entirely fair.
But, like... I fucking hate this game's sense of humor? Like the mentor figure's an old gay pervert who sexually harassed teen Shaq, the Chinese village ("Hunglo"; I know that's likely to be a Shadow Warrior shout-out as much as anything, but still) is littered with washing machines and conical hat stores, the game reached for a nonbinary "assuming my gender" joke then later has the lamest comedic takes I've seen on Nazis and Klansmen...
All that's the low-effort shit. What about high effort? Well, for one, there's the Kim Kardashian parody, who turns into a giant floating ass with wriggling cellulite, and it attacks by having violent taco shits, which the game giddily describes as "Brownbeard's Revenge".
There is basically nothing for me to like here. I don't find the moveset or power-ups interesting, I don't find the levels interesting, the gameplay animation is either basic or gross, the plot basically devolves into crass and crude edgy and referential humor without any real heart or charm. There are no unique mechanics or meaningful challenges, nothing that iterates upon the genre or acts as more than a momentary distraction. You get endless retries, so just get back up and go. No multiplayer, either. Just grind out the game, put it back in its jewel case, and put it away forever.
I'm not gonna pretend I'm the end-all-be-all authority to what does and doesn't make for good media. If you liked this game, man, I'm not gonna tell you you can't. I'm just saying, this was thoroughly not what I'm looking for in a video game.
...it is kind of cute that Icy Hots heal you. I'll give the game that.