Shadow Master

Shadow Master received mostly negative reviews. Critics unanimously praised the game's visuals for their cutting edge effects and imaginative design, but most found its gameplay severely lacking. Crispin Boyer of Electronic Gaming Monthly (EGM) summed up his assessment in simple terms: "Shadow Master looks good, sounds good, plays horribly." One of the most common particular criticisms was that the combination of a vehicle-bound player character with first-person perspective results in odd and often clunky controls, and the vehicle frequently gets stuck. IGN stated that "weapon control is unclear, and piloting your vehicle is ugly. If that's not disheartening, try aiming at a gun turret behind a wall and getting stuck in a corner." Kelly Rickards of EGM added that "the futuristic buggy-vehicle bounds around so much, it's a challenge just to shoot a simple enemy, let alone drive in a straight line." Critics also expressed frustration with the lack of a map system, unintelligent level design, and the long stretches between save points. The more mixed reviews still acknowledged the game's high level of frustration while arguing that it also has rewards. GamePro, for example, commented that the "lightning-fast gameplay... actually becomes annoying at times—as you blaze around a corner, you'll slide right into monsters. But with strategic puzzle elements, like timed switches and sequential triggers (where you have to press each trigger in a pattern), the game has some lasting power." GameSpot commented, "Hackneyed plot aside (an extreme evil has used up all of its planet's natural resources and is coming to - gasp - take ours), this game is actually pretty decent for a 3D shooter. The game combines intense graphics with an incredibly huge volume of enemies... [and the] landscapes and creatures differ from anything you've seen before." Citing the issues with the controls, linear level designs, and save system, Computer Gaming World summed up that "Shadow Master is a game that focuses too much on art and sacrifices gameplay." IGN and Next Generation both concluded, "Everything about Shadow Master screams 'second rate'. Pass on it and wait for the Psygnosis 'A' team to publish its next title." GameSpots review for the PC version cited issues with the multiplayer portion, noting that "Gameplay seems to slow down to the speed of the slowest machine on the network, which is a phenomenon I haven't encountered in quite a while. Our Righteous 3D machine chugged along at an unplayable pace, even with low-resolution, flat-shaded graphics enabled. The Obsidian system ran just as slowly, which made the two-player session boring, frustrating, and as far from fun as possible." The PlayStation version held a 66% on the review aggregation website GameRankings based on five reviews.