Shadow of Loot Box – “Hurray game installed… DRM authentication… OKAY we can finally start! Wait, microtransaction? Oh god no…” If this train of thought comes to mind for anyone out there, then you will most likely have played any of the countless games released this year, or any other year before that. And do we like it? NO! But what would one get if they took all of these annoyances and made a game around it? Well, one would get Shadow of Loot Box! So, let us explore these dark and dreary halls of past and present horrors in gaming history and see what Shadow of Loot Box will bring us…
What is Good?
- Satire: If there is one thing that this game gets right, then it’s the fact that it’s just one big joke toward the current gamers market. Every level consists of a jab at one of these tropes, you could have a very glitchy level where textures pop in and out, or message bubbles from developers towards the level designer to notify him to fix issue ‘X’. Or enter a town where each person is represented by their hitbox and not their skin. Clearly making fun of other games that, on release, were buggy and/or glitchy messes.
Mixed Feelings
- Pricing: But, why is it on mixed feelings? This game already comes at a low selling price. And, yes, this could be good for these kinds of short games. But this just doesn’t feel like it deserves to have a price tag in the first place. If this would have been free to play? Then heck yes, it would be an okay experience to be sure! But other than that, I would just wait for this to be on sale as its full retail price is still too much for what you actually get.
- Lackluster: There just is no challenge in here. From its level design to the drab colors and the braindead enemies, nothing made me think ‘oh wow’. Everything just feels phoned in. Everything except the DRM, which actually got a little chuckle of out me, just felt like they were trying too hard to make it funny. That as well as the lack of variance in enemies makes this an experience that will not make you go looking for more afterwards. Nor does the soundtrack, which seems to be almost entirely missing. When it comes down to the used sounds? I think you can count them on 2 hands. Now all this does make the game consistent, just not in the way you would want it to be consistent…
What is Bad?
- 1.5 HOURS!!: We all have experienced this at least once in our lifetime. You boot up a game, start playing it, and suddenly the end credits start rolling. Making you wonder how long you have actually been playing? You grab your watch, and check how long you actually were disconnected from reality… Only to come to one conclusion… A few hours. Well this game beats even that, as you can actually finish this in an hour !! I just had the bad luck that I failed my first few attempts at the final boss.
Shadow of Loot Box [Score: 45/100]
Unfortunately, even though I understood what the intentions were when they created this game, joking about all the current tropes in the gaming community like DLC, DRM servers screwing up connections, glitches…And though they did try, it felt like a boring experience. Alas this did not feel like the fun experience they were probably hoping it would have been. I would recommend this game if it’d be on sale, and you are looking for something to spend your hard-earned cash on. Other than that, just skip this. Its not fun, nor is it challenging. Now I got to go and check how quickly I can glitch this game off of my hard drive…
