In this episode, Jay takes us down to Deadside, walks us through the Marrow Gates, and introduces us to Legion and his group of nasties. This episode is Jay's attempt at a Retro Wildlands-like monologue about the deeply atmospheric, and incredibly dark Shadow Man from 1998.
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Content Warning
This episode is a Retro Wildlands-like exploration of one of my favourite, extremely dark games. This episode contains some pretty grisly descriptions of some of the darkest areas of the game. This means that the episode is not for the ears of the innocent or those triggered by descriptions of horror and gore.
As such, please listen responsibly.
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From active timer battling to zombie slaying, Waffling Taylors covers video games and beyond. And this episode will see us going quite far into the beyond - the great beyond, that is.
This episode of the Waffling Taylors was inspired by the Retro Wildlands podcast. I'm a big fan of Nomad's show, and think that you would be too - so go give it a listen (there's a link in the show notes). And if you haven't heard it yet, we had him on the show not too long back - here's a link to that.
This episode is going to be another monologue from me (Jay), but don't worry, Squidge is still very much here. In fact, he edited this episode (as he does with every episode) and I can prove it:
HONK!
- Squidge
So why is it just me this week? Firstly, Squidge is down with illness, but he'll be back very soon. I've also been wanting to tackle one of my favourite games in long form for a long time, and that game is Shadow Man. I discovered the Retro Wildlands podcast shortly after Nomad had released episode three (which was about Legend of Zelda: A Link to The Past) and loved it from the off.
I decided that Nomad's format would fit a monologue about Shadow Man perfectly, but I've no idea whether he will be interested in covering this game so I thought I would do it myself - Nomad, I'm more than happy for you to do a way better job that I have on this game.
I actually love Shadow Man so much that I that I've written about it twice for our blog (and there will be links in the show notes):
But before we get started with the episode proper, I want to issue a warning: Because we're going to touch on some of the content in one of the darkest video games I've ever played, I ask that you please consider skipping this episode if you are easily offended, can be triggered by descriptions of violence or horror, or are listening with those who have innocent ears.
I'm not going to cover some of the worst parts of the game's themes and story in this episode, but we'll certainly be dancing around them a little.
If you choose to continue onward, I'll have Squidge put this sound: ALERT! before and after any of the particularly grisly descriptions that I've decided to include in this monologue. I'll also warn you in advance and aim to give a "skip ahead x seconds to get around this bit" style of warning.
I ask that you please listen to this episode responsibly.
Background Info
So what is Shadow Man?
Aside from the spooky meme of a shadowy person who haunts people's sleep, near-sleep, and hallucinations, it is also a game which came out in 1998 - originally for the N64. It was then ported to the PlayStation, PC and Dreamcast (in that order) in 1999; making it a game for both the 5th and 6th generations of video game consoles.
It was developed by Acclaim Studios Teeside, a UK-based arm of Acclaim based in Teeside (in the North of England), and is based on the Valiant Comics character of the same name.
One thing to note is that the character of Shadow Man in the game is very different to the original Valiant Comics) run of the character. However, after the game came out, Acclaim bought Valiant Comics and started putting out stories based on the video game version of the Shadow Man character.
I'm greatly reducing the history and importance of the original Shadow Man character here so definitely go read up on him after listening to this episode.
If it was ported to three different formats back in the day, then which was the best one? It's my opinion that the Dreamcast version is the best. Mostly because it was the most powerful home console that the game was ported to. Because it was the last of the ports, the developers could put the most effort into the audio-visual quality of the game - combining the massive areas of the N64 version, and the high-quality skins and music from the PC version. However, because it was originally an N64 game which was ported to the Dreamcast, the controls are really quite bad - but we'll talk about that in a moment.
When Acclaim went belly up in 2004, the rights to the game were left in a sort of limbo. But in 2013, Nightdive announced that they had bought the rights and put the PC version up on GoG. This version came with a large number of quality-of-life improvements and bug fixes, and some extras that were never included in the original PC release - this included things like a downloadable version of the soundtrack and a scanned strategy guide.
Full Show Notes
A full transcript of this "raw with Jay" episode is available over in the full show notes - because there are loads of books you can read, and some web-based resources for you to consume.
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