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Sacred Reviews: Shawshank Dead Redemption - Red's Revenge

Intro

"Shawshank Dead Redemption: Red's Revenge" was one of the many entries in the RMN's 4th Birthday 4-hour the Cake is not a Lie! event. An event clearly meant to celebrate the site's fourth birthday by having people create games in four hours around the following theme:

Sequels that should never be made, but that we will make anyways.


A theme that is truly inspiring since it means people can make sequels so terrible that they actually manage to curve around and become awesome all over again. After all, if your going to make a bad game you might as well go all in and forgo all of the rules like "Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing". And this definitely a game that doesn't disappoint on that front.

Story

You play as Ellis Boyd 'Red' Redding whose trying to rescue Andy Dufresne from a recently resurrected Warden Norton. Of course, this cruel warden is now in charge of zombies that can only be killed by giving them a good and proper shanking. I guess, it's because Ellis feels like limiting himself since we all known he's really Morgan Freeman. And Morgan Freeman is god and could easily take down the zombies by spewing fireballs from his mouth and launching bolts of lightning out of his backside if he wished. But I suppose that would be a little too much. Or maybe it would make the game even better. At any rate after dealing with a few zombies you learn NewBlack didn't have enough time to create a second map or program a final boss fight so the game just abruptly ends upon entering the final boss room. You think he could have just described the battle as being so violent that it wouldn't be permitted. Sort of like my gif of Walter Donovan from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989). Though maybe having the game just end on apology note adds to the appeal. When dealing with bad gems like this the awesomeness factor can be very subjective.

Gameplay

While we don't get to spam magic at range. We are able to kill zombies by cutting them down with a shiv that matches their eye color.



A system that reminds me of "Skies of Arcadia Legends". Albeit the ability to change your weapons color in that game influenced what type of spells you'd learn as well as allow you to exploit the enemies elemental weaknesses. So it's completely different beyond being able to make your weapons change to various pretty colors.

Graphics

The game only comes with one map that is basically a boring hallway that is an ugly sea of greys. Though I suppose the choice in drab colors does remind me of "Nano Breaker". Though at least that game allows you to set your enemies to bleed rainbow colors all over the place in order to add a little color to the game. In fact, I'd say the worst thing about this game is just how drab the one map we get is, but it's probably a fitting pick considering were fighting zombies.

Glitches

The real joy of this game is just how bad the mapping is in terms of preventing the player from walking on and even through walls. Sadly there's no way to escape the realms of the drab hallway all together since it would be nice to explore the endless darkness like a truck driving at ever increasing speeds in reverse in "Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing", but I suppose I'll just have to live with being able to ghost through walls. I guess, Morgan Freeman wants to restrain himself to a meager .01% of his true power!



Conclusion

I'll admit this is a brief game whose many flaws kind of just make me smile. Admittedly there probably to be expected from a project thrown together in a mere four hours, but it's hard not to smile at Morgan Freeman proving his really god in "The Shawshank Redemption" universe. At least I hope that's the case based on my ability to ghost through solid objects like Kitty Pryde from the X-men.