of firearms, and characterization. Game Informer Matt Helgeson decried Shadow as a character who lacked personality and mocked his "ridiculous" and "laughable" Clint Eastwood rasp, while GameSpy Patrick Klepek felt the game was proof the Sonic series had jumped the shark. Similarly, 1UP.com Shane Bettenhausen compared Shadow to Poochie, a character from The Simpsons episode "The Itchy & Scratchy & Poochie Show" (1997) symbolic of creating a new character simply to boost a flagging series. Klepek thought guns made sense for Shadow's character but did not have a compelling use in the game, and expressed hope Sonic Team would "[bury] him alongside the same graves as the third-tier of characters from Knuckles' Chaotix." Critics reviewing the 2006 Sonic the Hedgehog considered Shadow's gameplay slightly better than that of Sonic's but felt it did not add enough to the experience, while Den of Geek Chris Freiberg wrote the Shadow DLC for Sonic Forces added some replay value to a game he criticized for its short length. Writers have called Shadow—both the game and the character—an ill-advised attempt to bring a sense of maturity to the Sonic series. Indeed, IGN Levi Buchanan and 1UPs Jeremy Parish considered him one of the series' biggest problems; Parish wrote that of the unnecessary Sonic characters Sega should retire, Shadow was the most in need of it. Numerous video game journalists have mockingly described the character as "edgy", internet slang referring to someone who exhibits disconcerting behavior in an effort to impress others. In 2010, DeviantArt user "cmara" released a webcomic depicting Shadow in a romantic relationship with Shrek, the title character of the DreamWorks film series. According to Kotaku Nathan Grayson, the comic paired the two because "if Shrek was the big screen embodiment of nu-millennium toilet garbage, Shadow the Hedgehog—with his hilariously unfitting blend of guns and angst in a colorful world of fast animals in clown shoes—was his video game bride. Both tried to act like they were too cool for 'kid stuff.' Too sophisticated, too edgy. They were made for each other—and approximately one billion people between the ages of 12 and 34." Shadow is a divisive Sonic character. Some, such as East, who ranked him one of the series' best characters, praise him for his role in Sonic Adventure 2; Game Informer Brian Shea called Shadow a "fun equal" to Sonic who delivered the series' traditional sense of speed, and Polygon