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Why can’t minorities make games about minorities as primary characters? A strange answer, Shadows of the Damned is.

Goichi Suda, famously known as Suda51, and Shinki Mikami answered with a east meets west initiative of Grasshopper Manufacture with Shadows of the Damned, which just hit video game stores in the United States.

Japanese developers making a game with a Hispanic character lead for mass audience appeal is strange indeed. The SotD is to be a bestseller, while using the Unreal Engine, the game is intended to be consumed by mass audiences, the gamers who devoured similar third-person shooters like Gears of War, Resident Evil 4 and its sequel RE 5.

The story revolves the Hispanic character Garcia Hotspur and his “freed” demon sidekick, Johnson, which is the funniest name for a sidekick second only Don Quixote’s squire Sancho Panza (panza meaning belly). And like Quixote, Garcia’s creators are self aware and never take the game to be a serious horror (like Silent Hill) or just action (Resident Evil 5) while hitting each punch line in a this dark comedy. Imagine a movie, dashed of Evil Dead slightly flavored with Machete, SotD comes the closest to it.


With Garcia, we get a complicated character than the usual clean-slate types gamers are so fond of. Garcia, is Mexican-American, whom desperately tries to reach his Paula but fails as Fleming (a demon lord) has imprisoned her in the demon castle. The hilarious stories of bosses by dramatic reading of Garcia and Johnson add much comic relief from an action sequence and have much entertainment value.

The mature sexual humor of SotD has a sense of whimsy and moments of over the top hilarity. In one mission, Garcia arms Johnson (your sidekick is also your sidearm) as the “Big Boner” while shooting literally from the hip. A six inch penis is rarely interesting but a six footer is, especially while aiming at tall giant demons. Another scene, Garcia has to mount and travel around a giantess Paula, which is reminiscent of a scene in the Pedro Almovador’s movie Talk to Her.

The charges of machismo and marianismo hold little critical weight. While Garcia exhorts bravado, he rarely exhibits misogyny throughout his trials. Critics confused pride in Garcia’s heritage as macho, which is unfair and unfounded. Paula referenced as an iconic use of marianismo is a bit misleading as, woman get a sense of strength through sexual purity and passivity, but Paula is the exact opposite. SotD is sexual humor is tongue in check laughter while a comparison to Duke Nukem Forever leaves the former looking crude and creepy.

SotD is more sexual humor than the type of cultural charge it is falsely accused of. SotD is not a great representation of Mexican culture nor does it try to be, as the game is a fun, and a campy shooter. SotD is the incarnation of Robert Rodriguez movies into a Japanese mold baked for a Halloween dress rehearsal. A game that should not be missed and played to the end credits.