Reviews
Once in a while a game comes along which slaps you in the face like a bag of bricks. The sort of life-affirming slap in the face that people seem to get at an Anthony Robbins show. Yes I have seen the light, and that light shines in 2D. I had lost my way you see, ever since the Nintendo 64 showed us what 3D gaming could be like, playing on the old-fashioned two planes seemed to be reserved for nostalgics and people with beards. Sure Castlevania was awesome and Metroid had its fans but really, if you had to pick a game to play tonight in your precious two hour window before bed-time would you pull out Call of Duty: WAW or Contra? Forza 2 or Pole Position? While the old games had gameplay in spades, they lack the eye-candy and immersion to hold our interest for long in today’s age. There has been a resurgence of late in spruced up 2D platform games with HD visuals on XBLA, none have really left their mark as nothing more than an old uncle trying to be cool again. Then comes along Shadow Complex and kicks me in the nuts for saying that.
You see, what we have here is what made the classic 2D platform shooters great - solid controls, great exploration, loads of secrets, plenty of upgrades, exciting combat and replayability. Add a touch of HD visuals, atmospheric music and loud explosions and you have a modern day take on the genre. Now add some lashings of brilliance, use the Unreal engine as a base, plus another dash of brilliance for good measure and you have Shadow Complex. The game starts off like a well-oiled Tom Clancy novel, albeit it’s actually based on a book by Orson Scott Card (who?) titled Empire. You’re Jason Fleming, while taking a pleasant afternoon mountain hike with his girlfriend, the day turns out a little more eventful than imagined when you’re caught up in a big plot by a terrorist group to overthrow the current US government. Jason is a pacifist at heart who just so happened to be trained by his military father to be an awesome killing machine. Convenient. I think I also heard Jason in the game actually saying he’s got “ninja skills”. Anyway, the plot and dialogue isn’t going to rock your world but it does set up the game nicely in finding your girlfriend in the underground terrorist complex. As a side note, the bad guys in this game do land some pretty full-on punches to your girlfriend’s noggin. A level of violence against a helpless female game character I haven’t seen since the start of Double Dragon where a hoodlum lands one right into your girlfriend’s gut. Anyway, I digress.
You start the game with just your flashlight and some hiking gear from your date’s backpack. The flashlight also highlights parts of the scenery where you can interact with to unlock blocked paths. The colour of which will determine what tools or weapons are necessary to break them. This serves to block areas of the map where you can’t access yet and also reveal hidden rooms you can backtrack to once you find the relevant weapon. For example a grate highlighted as orange can only be opened with a gun and a door highlighted as red can only be opened with a missile. Needless to say you start coming across some nifty weapons and upgrades such as a grappling hook and jetpack to reach previously inaccessible areas. It’s all scaled brilliantly and by the end of the game you’ll have everything in your arsenal to access the entire map if you’re clever enough. The game design at its heart is a 2D platformer but the developers have added the 3rd dimension in combat. Enemies in the background can shoot you and vice versa so you actually can shoot "into" the screen. This is handled with some automatic aiming but you can also direct your direction of your shot with the right analogue stick. The difficulty level will determine the level of auto-aiming but even at its best it’s not always quick or accurate enough so it’s best to aim yourself, especially if you’re vying for the headshot achievement. This 2.5D environment adds another level of immersion to the game and is all the better because of it.
Since the game is centred around "rooms", there are points on the map called Save rooms where you will automatically save your progress and get the chance to pick up some vital health packs and ammo supplies. The game’s weaponry and gadgets later in the game when you start finding parts for your mech-style suit becomes a little overkill for your foes. It actually makes the game almost too easy against the normal foes. I would suggest ramping up the difficulty (which you can do on the fly mid-game) as this also gains you more experience points. These points will level up Jason and endow you with more health, better accuracy, etc. Part of the problem why combat is a little easy is because the A.I. is a little thick. You can run up to them before they notice you’re even there or sometimes they even shoot their own team. The one hit melee take down, while spectacularly showcasing your uber-ninja skills, makes progress a little easy. Even so, the bosses provide some challenge and the difficulty ramps up when the screen is packed full of enemies. Plus the hidden secrets will have you scratching your head even with a fully decked out mech suit. The map shows you which rooms have secrets so you’ll always know you’re close, yet still so far away. Note that in Save rooms, there could be a secret there as well but it doesn't show up on the map because the Save room icon takes precedence over the Secret icon. Completists will find there’s plenty on offer even after the game finishes, as you can start from your last save before the final boss battle to get 100% items. There’s also the Proving Grounds which set specific challenges against the clock (and there’s a lot of them) although I recommend you dabble in these after you have finished the game. These challenges introduce methods and gadgets you might not have unlocked in the main campaign yet so you’ll be at a loss as to how to use them effectively.
The level of attention to detail is quite frankly, epic. Achievements are tracked telling you how far away you are from reaching them as well as showing a friend's tally to compare your progress. Sure there are some A.I. issues and the game isn’t that long, nor is the premise particularly original. But these will be the best 6 hours you will have had in a very long time. Music is suitably tranquil in the swimming areas, while ramping up the tempo during intense battles. Once you get your mech suit with the super boots, your first sonic boom run will have you giggling like a schoolgirl. The graphics are superbly detailed except for the low texture detail in cut-scenes. There’s depth of field tricks, superbly rendered 3D backgrounds and gigantic bosses. Your laser sight has smoke breaking the line, bullets shoot into the water with rippling effects and bodies float around when some parts of the complex become flooded. There are also instances where you can interact with the environment such as launching a grenade into a pipe to have it shoot off an explosion at the other end. I don’t want to spoil any more surprises but there are plenty of moments where you fathom to think this is just an XBLA game, such is the level of polish on the presentation. Upon finishing a session, you will be looking to eject the disc. It’s that good. Thank God Microsoft lifted their XBLA game limit of 50MB, because this one is a mammoth 835MB. And no other game in history has blurred the line more between an XBLA game and a full priced retail disc game. For a measly 1200 MS points, this is the buy of the year. In fact, if you don’t like this game, I don’t think I could be friends with you.
Xboxzone Score: 9.4/10
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