When a doomsday device's about to fall in the wrong hands, who you gonna Call?
Shadow Guardian is a 2010 Third-Person Shooter action game for Android and iOS made by Gameloft. Like most of Gameloft's output, the game is heavily inspired by a successful franchise on home consoles, in this case Uncharted.
Players assume the role of Jason Call, a blatant knockoff of Nathan Drake, and an ex-soldier working as an investigative journalist. Travelling across the globe in an epic adventure, Jason must stay one step ahead of Dr. Novik, a dictator whose army is seeking a doomsday artifact called the Prima Materia, where Jason takes on enemy mercenaries and giant monsters in a series of levels set in Egypt, India and Antartica.
The game receives an updated remaster in 2022.
"It all started with a mission in Indonesia.."
- Adventurer Archaeologist: Jason Call is an ex-soldier turned treasure hunter and archeologist who takes on enemy mooks and gigantic monsters, befitting a Nathan Drake-Expy.
- And the Adventure Continues: The final stage ends with Jason defeating Novik's mecha (using his own), and the revelation of a new entrance into the Antarctic ruins. Jason then proceeds to enter the ruin for a new adventure and the credits roll.
- Big Bad: Dr. Novik, a Mad Scientist and dictator seeking the Prima Materia and having his private army searching the globe for it. And Jason is the lone hero standing in his way.
- Big Creepy-Crawlies: Gigantic scarab beetles assaults Jason in the Luxor Temple, with a tank-sized scarab serving as it's boss.
- Body of Bodies: The undead abominations that Jason fights in the Red Sea and Antarctic resembles multiple decomposing human bodies fused together, with at least two visible skulls for heads and several other body parts forming the torso. They're expectedly the largest enemies in the game.
- Conspicuously Light Patch: During climbing sessions where Jason clings on ledges by his fingers, some of them are collapsible and breaks away as soon as Jason grabs them, the breakable parts being slightly lighter than permanent ones. But the game tends to play around with these - there are regular looking blocks who will break at random, even if they're not lightly-colored.
- Evil Brit: Dr. Novik has a British accent and is a power-hungry mad scientist seeking to rule the world.
- Gatling Good: Some of Novik's larger mooks uses belt-fed Gatling guns to assault Jason, and are among the deadlier enemies due to their firepower. Unfortunately Jason couldn't use their weapons after killing them, which seems justified because they're too heavy and will get in Jason's way when he tries climbing ledges.
- Hanging by the Fingers: Jason spends much of the game dangling on ledges outside towers, mausoleums, cliffs, over Bottomless Pits, or climbing gigantic statues, mostly to activate hidden switches or evade enemies.
- How We Got Here: The game opens with Jason Strapped to an Operating Table while being interrogated by Dr. Novik, who decides to probe Jason's mind after he refuse to give in to interrogations. Then the game reflects on how Jason thwarts Novik's plans repeatedly and taking down his minions, with each and every level save for the last being a flashback.
- Light and Mirrors Puzzle: Shows up everywhere in the Medusa Sanctuary, where Jason needs to move and flip panels containing Medusa's images (shooting them from a distance also works) to reflect light projections in order to activate exits.
- Mêlée à Trois: The many abominations and monsters guarding the tombs will kill everything that attempts to intrude, including Novik's mooks. When Jason infiltrate the Red Sea temple he comes across a mercenary killed by them (which he took a machine-gun from the corpse) and later areas will have mercenaries and abominations appearing together, where they spend as much time attacking Jason as they did killing each other.
- Mini-Mecha: The final stage have Jason uncovering a steampunk mech in the Antarctic ruins, somehow still functiong after several centuries of dormancy. He then hijacks it to take down Novik's tanks and remaining mercenaries. Novik, the Final Boss, notably pilots his own mecha retrieved from another part of the caverns to fight Jason with.
- Monster Delay: The first undead abomination appears in this manner; as Jason enters an underwater temple, he catches a brief glimps of a monster turning into a corner and even mutters "what was that?" After five minutes searching for an entrance, cue Jason getting ambushed by that same monster, before battling several more of them.
- Neck Snap: Jason's first onscreen kill in the first level is a distracted mook, which he grabs by the neck and twists in a Quick Time Event. For the rest of the game Jason can do this on human enemies if they're close enough for him to grab and execute.
- One-Man Army: Jason Call wipes out entire legions of mercenaries single-handedly, besides destroying turrets, armored vehicles and helicopters throughout the game.
- Plunger Detonator: Malkata ruins have multiple mercenaries setting up explosives trying to blow open an entrance using one such detonator, but they're interrupted by Jason showing up. After a massive gunfight which ends with Jason killing everyone, he then finds the detonator and in true Action Hero fashion, triggers it by stepping on the plunger.
- The Precarious Ledge: Besides hanging from his fingers, several levels also have Jason standing on high ledges, where an ill-timed jump would lead to his death.
- Shield-Bearing Mook: Some of Novik's men carries riot shields which gives them slgihtly better defenses, but Jason can penetrate these shields easily with shotguns or rockets.
- Sniper Rifle: One of the pickups Jason can obtain to snipe enemies from a distance.
- Sniping the Cockpit: Jason has a Cutscene Power to the Max moment where he takes out a helicopter by jumping off a building roof, landing on the cockpit, and shooting the pilot from point-blank. He then jumps off and grabs a nearby ledge as the helicopter crashes in the streets.
- Super Window Jump: The Alexandria level begins with a helicopter assaulting Jason's hotel room, where he escapes by leaping out a nearby window and landing on a mercenary waiting to ambush him. Cue Jason grabbing the unconscious mook's machine-gun and shooting at incoming mooks.
- Take Cover!: Just like its inspiration, you can duck behind objects and pop out to shoot, which is an essential tactic when engaging in firefights.
- Tanks for Nothing: The streets of Alexandria have a massive shootout where enemy mooks sends a tank on Jason, but Jason simply disables it five seconds later by shooting a fusebox above, landing on the tank and causing it to short out. The tank does re-activate after a short while, but it's painfully slow and nowhere as durable as it looks - Jason simply retrieves a rocket launcher from a slain mook and destroys it with one shot.
- Underground Level: Expectedly, since the hero is an explorer - Luxor Temple in Egypt and Medusa Sanctuary in the Red Sea both takes place in underground mausoleums where Jason must uncover hidden artifacts while staying ahead of Novik's mercenaries.
- Unique Enemy: There are two mooks who attacks Jason with Guns Akimbo, one in the Alexandria shootout and another in an Indian temple, where both times they're sandwiched between hordes of common enemies. Another can be briefly seen in the Antarctic trying (and failing) to defend himself from giant monsters.
- Waking Up Elsewhere: How the game starts - with Jason waking up in Novik's laboratory, Strapped to an Operating Table and being interrogated by Novik. The rest of the game is told in flashbacks.
