Complex Issues: Shadow Complex

By: PoisonRamune, the Apathetic Lizardman

A couple months ago Chair Entertainment and Gears of War developer Epic Games released an action-adventure platforming game done in the style as Metroid and the later Castlevanias. While the game generally succeeds as being a fun “collect the upgrades” game, Xbox Live Arcade’s Shadow Complex is a bit weak in certain areas.

"For the longest time I thought Shadow Complex was some disease and not the name of the compound."

The story of Shadow Complex is like some sort of oxymoron. Even though the developers tried to keep the story telling simple with a very minimalist approach, the story they’re trying to tell is actually quite convoluted and confusing, as it’s based on some Orson Scott Card political novel (which chronicles the events of a fictional American civil war between Liberals and Conservatives). The political undertones in this game can be easily overlooked (despite being semi-brooding), since this story really focuses on 2 young adults (Jason and Claire) that inadvertently become key players in the war after discovering the Shadow Complex while on a hiking date.

"The cast of Metal Gear Solid came by an hour ago looking for their costumes, they were pissed to see some losers wearing their clothes."

The gameplay is pretty straight forward and much more linear than the standard Metroidvania games on the market today. While you have the freedom to explore the complex to search for hidden upgrades and secret passages; there’s a handy way point system that not only shows your destination, but also the path you should be using to get there. This sort of helps and hinders the game in its own way. I like the fact that it’s very hard for you to get lost in this game, since it’s obvious to see when you’re off course. However, I feel that telling you exactly how to get to your destination goes a bit too far here, as games like this are mostly about exploration.

"Even though there's a lot more stuff going on underground, I do like the above ground locales a lot."

The controls in the game are simple and easy to learn. You do everything you’d expect to do in an action-adventure platformer, such as: running, jumping, crouching, and firing your weapons; most of which are programmed very well and work exactly as they should. The only exception to this is your aiming controls; since the game not only has a subtle aim helper/auto aim function, but it also has a bad habit of aiming at the least threatening or hardest to hit enemy first. Changing your aim from being fixed on the harmless goon to aiming for the wanna-be Liquid Snake with the chain gun will feel like you’re briefly trying to control your aim with 2 magnets of opposite polarity. While far from game breaking, aiming effectively does take a good while to get used to and causes huge amounts of frustration until you do.

The presentation in this game is very well done; however, I totally disagree with a lot of the design choices the developers went with. The character models and environments are very clean and well made, but that doesn’t stop them from looking like they were all designed by Metal Gear Solid’s design department. The main character, Jason wears street clothes that are strikingly similar to Solid Snake’s attire, as well as later obtaining upgradeable armor that bears a strong resemblance to the Cyborg Ninja’s stealth suit. Even the guards seem heavily inspired by Metal Gear Solid, as the low level goons around the complex get their uniforms from the same place as Metal Gear’s genome soldiers.

"Bring me back, Snake! Make me feel alive again!"

The audio in this game also suffers from some poor implementation. The music is very well made, yet seems to be reluctant to work with the other components of the game. During the fire fights and other action portions of the game, the music pretty much does as it pleases. This could include: playing an action movie type track right as a gun fight is finishing, not playing any track at all, or in some rare occasions playing an appropriate song for the in-game situation. My brain eventually learned to filter this out and treat it as if I was listening to someone playing a random CD in my house as I played Shadow Complex. The sound effects also have a very Metal Gear feel to them, but this mostly has to do with the fact that both games are about infiltrating a terrorist headquarters. The voice acting is pretty good for the most part, pretty much all the lines sound natural and not forced at all. However, you do get a couple bits of dialogue that sound either corny like a low budget movie or down right annoying as if they came from a poorly made television show.

"The intro is pretty Metroidy as you start the game playing as a character wearing the fully upgraded Omega armor."

For a $15 downloadable game Shadow Complex is not bad. However, everything this game has seeks out to do has been done better by other games in this genre. In cases like this I would normally suggest waiting for the price to drop before buying it to make it worth the purchase. This is nearly impossible this time around, as Xbox Live Arcade games rarely go on sale; I will suggest that you use this game as a sort of placeholder game. So if you’re itching for: the indefinite release of Cave Story, the newest handheld Castlevania, The Other M or any other collect the upgrades game that's due out in the nearer future; then you should seriously look into this game.

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