If you're looking for a brilliant, mildly offensive time-waster, this is probably it. It's not long after your first fire up Shadow Warrior 2 that you're up to your eyeballs in demon guts, explosive crabs and wang jokes. And it just gets better from there.
Let’s get this out of the way; Dropsy freaks the hell out of me. For the life of me, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was being slowly tortured by a retro-inspired nightmare. The colour palate alone evokes the same effect as someone dragging their fingernails down a chalkboard. Indeed, the game made me realise I probably have a touch of coulrophobia. But putting my insecurities aside, Dropsy is one very good game that adventure fans should play. Just don’t send me your psychologist bill.
What is it about clowns that evoke such a sense of unease? Psychologist Sigmund Freud might say that clowns embody the notion of the “uncanny,” that feeling of when you look at something or someone and it’s not quite right. The thing in question is often recognisable, but just different enough to be disconcerting. By all accounts, this is the pretext underlying Dropsy - a slightly rotund clown with a garish yellow-toothed smile, ghostly pale make-up, and an eclectic outfit that wouldn’t be out of place in the 1980s. Based on appearances only, this is not the sort of clown you’d invite to perform at children’s parties. Or associate with. Ever.
