Shank is a 2-D side-scrolling beat-'em-up with minor platforming elements. The protagonist, simply known as Shank, fights his way through hundreds of enemies as he takes on The Militia. There's three weapon types assigned to three buttons; knives for a light mêlée attack, heavy weapon, and ranged. As you progress through the game, you unlock new heavy and ranged weapons. In the first game, you could switch on the fly, but now you choose your 'load-out' before the level begins. You can also carry a limited amount of explosives such as grenades, Molotov cocktails and mines. There's numerous temporary weapons in the environment (shovels, barrels etc) or are dropped by enemies (bats, knives etc). Shank can also grab or pounce on enemies which can be used to take enemies by surprise or take them down in style.
The animation in the game is absolutely superb, so chaining between the different types of attacks and weapons is fast, smooth, and incredibly gory. You can now counter-attack when prompted which triggers a brutal execution.
The game is challenging enough, but the frequent checkpoints on the default difficulty makes it feel just right. You will always respawn with full health. You have to be mindful of different enemies attack behaviour, and use the dodge liberally since it's easy to get surrounded or gunned from range.
Shank can climb vertical walls using his knives and swing across posts. Platforming has been toned down compared to the first game, but are more prominent on certain levels. The toning down is a positive improvement since this was one of the aspects which annoyed me in the previous game.
There's quite a few bosses scattered throughout the game. In the previous game, you dealt minor damage with normal attacks, but exploit a weakness to do large amount of damage. This time, it's a case of attacking and dodging at the correct moments. The final boss seems a bit on the easy side; which is disappointing.
There's 24 pieces of intelligence hidden across the levels, so you need to keep your eye out for the hidden areas.
The single-player campaign will be over after around 3 hours but it feels shorter than the previous game. You don't really expect more than that for this type of game, but I expected them to improve and expand on the original.
Instead of having a dedicated Co-Op campaign, you now play Co-Op in a Survival mode. You are tasked with protecting three machines from special enemies who deploy explosives whilst fending off a host of other enemies. You can play this mode in single-player but it's designed with multiplayer in mind.
The great art design and animation means it's fantastic to look at, and the combat is smooth and brutal. I have mixed feelings on the changes made from the original game and expected a much larger game. It's a very similar game though.