The modern Shadow Warrior was a surprisingly enjoyable game for me, even when you account for an overuse of Wang-based puns, simply because the action was unrelenting, and most importantly, visceral.

And from what I'm seeing in the recently released 'A Dozen Hot Minutes of Action' gameplay video, that trend is going to continue, but this time around with even more action, and even bigger wangs, and I wish that was a simple capitalization error. Have a look, and if you want to skip straight to all of the slaughter go to around 2 minutes:

First of all, I am really liking the new-found focus on verticality, jumping around, and even quicker movement despite the presenter seemingly using a controller throughout the video. Its also worth mentioning that the hilarious death and explosion animations are back with a vengeance, with my favorite example so far being the enemies that look down only to see a hole where their chest used to be, and then promptly topple over.

Ahh... the simple things in life

On the negative side, however, it seems that the story is going to be just as filled with terrible jokes and cliche moments as the first one. Its not a very big deal in the grand scheme of things, especially since Shadow Warrior 2's focus is on slicing and dicing rather than talking things out, but would it hurt to have a narrative not based around the easiest jokes in the world? 

The final issue I had with the gameplay trailer was all of the health bars and damage numbers that kept popping up, though I understand this is going to come down to personal preference, which in my case means I'm going to be constantly taken out of an exciting fight by a bloody health bar and spew of numbers covering the most interesting bits. Then again, perhaps they will add an option to disable such things, especially since they don't seem to be an integral part of the game.

Shadow Warrior 2 is coming to PC and consoles in 2016, and if you're interested in learning more about it you can do so on the Wang-tastic official website.