Shadow Complex Review

[Only fair to drop props for my copy of this game to Gamer Limit and their bizarre challenges. Thanks guys!]

The Restoration are ex-graffiti artists turned militant

All winter long (summer, for our friends in the opposite hemisphere) Xbox has been doing it’s best to show that Arcade games can be just as enjoyable as retail titles, and some would probably say that with Shadow Complex they’ve managed to achieve this end. The rather simplistic design and classic shooter gameplay sold me on this title from the moment I was first given a gun. It’s a tight, well designed package that proves itself as an excellent addition to anyone’s gaming library.

As someone who appreciates retro gaming, there was no way I could not enjoy Shadow Complex. Players take the role of Jason Flemming, your run-of-the-mill everyday shmoe, who (as luck would have it) just happens to have elite military training. After being invited for a quick spelunk by his potential girlfriend Claire, things quickly turn from romantic crevice exploring (oh my!) to espionage thriller.

The cave you’ve started exploring adjoins the entrance to an underground military installation called the Shadow Complex, where a mysterious group called the Restoration are preparing for an all-out attack on San Francisco. After Claire is discovered and taken prisoner, Jason has to work out a way to rescue her and stop the Restoration’s plans. This is when his dad’s insistence on Jason’s military training comes in handy (and to think he had the cheek not to appreciate it at the time).

OK, so as you might have garnered, the plot ain’t really all that. It’s interesting enough to give you a reason to be wandering from room to room engaged in pitched gun battle, but has enough of a sarcastic edge that allows the player to enjoy themselves with the slightly cheesy set up.   Luckily, you don’t need to keep playing this game because of the plot. You’ll be coming back for more of the fantastic shooter gameplay.

Free and unfettered, Jason bounds through the wilderness alone

Chair Entertainment quite happily admits that the game is one long homage to the Metroid series, Super Metroid to be exact. Apparently the first stage of the games development was to have the programmers play through several Metroid titles to get the feel right.  The game coins itself as a 2.5D shooter. Jason’s movement is confined to a traditional 2D platformer style, but the combat is three dimensional, often forcing the player to aim either into the foreground or background. While it sounds a little complex (*badumching*) the auto-aim is quite forgiving, and simply pointing your right thumbstick in the direction of the enemy you’re trying to shoot will automatically adjust Jason’s aim three dimensionally. There are plenty of opportunities to make good use of cover, a selection of secondary artillery and some very simple (yet highly enjoyable) melee combat. There are also a few different environmental dangers players can exploit to give them an advantage, like shooting loose electrical wires or tossing a grenade through a ventilation duct.

So that’s the everyday combat, but where would any self-respecting Metroid clone be without boss fights? The boss battles are suitably varied throughout the game, some require a variety of tactics to overcome, while others are just simple brute-force affairs. Most of them seem fairly ridiculous (T-shirt clad man versus super robot battle spider?!?), but thankfully the situations like these are just too fun to be ruined by reality. Then again, once you progress far enough into the game Jason starts resembling a tank anyway, so you seem to even the odds a little as your armour improves.

T-shirt and pistol takes on WSA2: Robotic Super Spider

But combat isn’t the be all and end all of Shadow Complex, as the game relies heavily on exploration and puzzle solving too. In a rather user friendly fashion, players can use their torch to identify special areas of the environment and how to manipulate them. For instance, if a torch-lit door glows red, it can only be opened by blowing it open with a missle. At the beginning of the game, players will walk past many areas that they do not have the equipment to access yet, and wonder why on earth the game would tease them like this. The real idea behind this is to encourage back-tracking and re-exploration.

Hidden all the way through the complex are collectible items that will increase your health, armour and artillery capacity. To actually collect every one means retracing your steps quite often. The map displays areas with collectible items as a ‘?’ area, but (and I’ll admit a little swearing on my part at this point) to compound your problems, some areas can contain two items, or items hidden in save rooms. In these cases, you can’t tell if an item is still hiding here or not, as the legend will remove the ‘?’, or be covered over by the large star that represents a save point.

It’s time to consult a couple of walkthroughs at these points.  Otherwise you could be wandering for weeks.

To spur the player to exploration even further, the final piece of Jason’s battle-suit can only be obtained after collecting 12 pass-keys hidden around the map. As the ambiguous ‘?’ marker doesn’t actually specify what item lies hidden in that sector, you can spend an awful lot of time trying to track down your final piece of armour. Luckily, for those of you not quite as obsessive-compulsive as me, you are able to opt to ignore this piece of the battle suit if you want.

You begin the game in military casual

As players upgrade their armour, they gain new abilities that help them overcome previous obstacles. Fully upgraded you can triple-jump, charge up a wall-running sprint, use a grappling hook and breathe underwater (and some other neat stuff too). Upgrading a component at a time allows the player to slowly reveal more and more of the map as they gain more and more powers.

Visually the game is quite solid. The 2D platforming integrates quite nicely over the 3D environment. There are a few points where you consider Jason quite daft for not just walking AROUND a box or the like, but for the most part you won’t really mind. You’re not really beaten around the head with the story (which is lucky, because it’s a bit paper thin), and you’ll end up collecting most of the pertinent plot points from overheard conversation. The voice acting is a good quality, and doesn’t feel the need to intrude every two seconds.

Shadow Complex is one of those games where you may be a bit disappointed that Arcade titles are limited to 200 achievement points. There is a great selection of achievements, and some definitely feel like they should be worth more considering the effort that goes into them. The game also gives the player a selection of highly challenging achievements to attempt for no reward at all. Most of these “Master Challenges” involve breaking the game’s linear storyline, in one way or another, including one where you can even choose to end the game early: by abandoning Claire and driving away. So brilliant. I can only applaud a design team that tells players to go out and find ways to break what they’ve just built.

The Verdict:

Pros: Great classic side-scrolling action. Exploration is encouraged, and the designers have given you plenty of reasons to give it a try. Players begin quite vulnerable, but slowly build their way up to walking tanks, which allows for both the challenge of out-thinking your enemies then the fun of just running straight through them. Puzzles are easy to find, but often difficult to solve, which is a very nice mixture.

Cons: Enemy AI isn’t always top notch, every now and again you’ll see an enemy blow themselves up after shooting the exploding barrel they’ve (for whatever reason) chosen to hide behind. There are a couple of collectible items that are nigh on impossible to discover without help. Every now and then you’ll wish that you could adjust the 2D camera slightly to help you see your objective.

Overall: If you were a fan of Metroid, you’ll love this game. If you weren’t a fan of Metroid, you’ll most likely love this game. The combination of classic 2D shooter and vent-crawling exploration is a winner. While the plot is a bit cliche’d and not particularly interesting, there’s a good chance you’ll be having too much fun to really care. 4 out of 5, a great game!