Shank is a 2D side-scrolling brawler in which you control a guy named Shank.  The Demo starts out with, for reasons unknown, Shank lying bloody on the floor beaten down at the hands of Semi-pro wrestler named “The Butcher”.  The Butcher tells shank that he’s going to do some nasty things to his woman (ala Tin-Tin in The Crow), and then proceeds to run off, said woman in hand.

You cut to the next scene, where Shank finds himself in a bar that The Butcher apparently frequents and the bartender orders the patrons to attack.  Shank takes down the initial horde of bad guys, first disarming two men with shivs (knives), another two with pistols, and finally a big dude with a chainsaw (nope…sorry…no chainsaws akimbo).  The game then begins after you holster your chainsaw (ala Bruce in Army of Darkness).  A quick tutorial of basic controls in the bar occurs and you’re off to rescue or take revenge for your damsel.  To heal you on your journey you drink some kind of a malt liquor in a bottle, dramatically smashing it on the ground after pounding the litre down.

The art is reminiscent of the Penny Arcade Adventures: Rainslick Precipice of Darkness.  The music was very entertaining, but very unoriginal.  I can understand why they would be giving the soundtrack away for free, as every song sounds remarkably similar to the last.  Every cliche that you could possibly imagine was pulled out for the one level demo, which makes me wonder, what else could they possibly have to keep you interested afterwards?

Motorcycles…I’ll bet you there are motorcycles somewhere in this game.  And they could really have toned down the Lorenzo Lamas ‘feel’.

Overall, the story is very unoriginal, yet somewhat entertaining.  For Klei’s first time outing as an original game, I give it an A for effort.  But I can’t see myself spending $15 (1200 Microsoft Points) on this game.