Shank is a classic beat 'em up side-scroller featuring retro-stylized gameplay and hand-drawn graphics reminiscent of a comic book. The game's protagonist is a dangerous avenger named Shank, who must eliminate enemies using knives, firearms, and one brutal heavy weapon. The game was released on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 and was later ported to personal computers, which affected the control scheme — playing Shank is much more enjoyable with a joystick, like in the good old days of brawlers like Contra.
The game is known for its extraordinary brutality — it’s full of blood, enemies can be viciously finished off, grenades can be shoved down their throats, thrown to the ground with all your might, torn to pieces, shot in mid-air with firearms, or simply punched in the face — a pleasure to behold. The amazing "comic" graphic style of Shank is also worth mentioning — all the animations, the fast-changing backgrounds, the enemies — everything is impeccably crafted, and you can admire the game for hours.
However, the gameplay isn't just a simple arcade "jump-and-shoot". The main character, Shank, zips around the levels and performs mind-boggling combos and acrobatic flips, elegantly taking the lives of enemies in various sadistic ways. Despite its two-dimensional nature and the apparent lack of deep gameplay as a result, the game often reminds one of Devil May Cry or Bayonetta.
But despite all these advantages, after about an hour and a half of play, Shank starts to feel repetitive. The gameplay, while elegant, and the graphics, flawless, become tedious — the sea of blood and brutal combos no longer evoke the same emotions, enemies, though visually different, behave identically, and new weapons are rarely encountered. The only thing that livens up the game — boss fights (the bosses in Shank are crafted in the best traditions of old-school beat 'em up scrolls — all are diverse and provide a real challenge, each requiring the player to find a weak spot) or the cooperative mode, which, although interesting, is very short-lived. The cooperative mode, by the way, serves as a prequel to the single-player campaign, in which Shank's girlfriend is kidnapped, and he decides to take revenge by annihilating everything in his path.
Shank lacks any additional game modes beyond cooperation, and the single-player campaign does not inspire a strong desire to replay it. Despite the excellent graphics and hurricane gameplay, Shank is unable to engage players for long, but the first few minutes give many expensive 3D projects a run for their money.