Shadow Complex Review

Jason Flemming is a simple soul, simply backpacking in the Pacific with his new girlfriend, Claire, when she decides to go and have a little explore where you used to go as a child. However - typically - something goes wrong. Jason is left searching for Claire who has been dragged, drugged and interrogated by an organisation nestled within the ravine. It's up to you, Jason, to save the princess and ultimately, save the day.

Story

Most arcade titles are rather shallow on story as it's pretty hard maintaining the production values to match a retail release so mostly, developer's just don't bother. Thing is though, this game is very different. Ever since its announcement at E3 last year (2009) when a Mr Cliffy B took to the stage, we knew we were on to a quality product and Chair entertainment with backing from Epic have done us proud.

The scripture started at source with the quality writings  of Peter David - famous mostly for writing the Star Trek novels - and the entire story has a satisfying weight of story to it. It's slightly predictable and a little clichéd but it doesn't matter when it's presented so well.  The story line basically sees you (playing as Jason) collecting items in order to build a suit to aid your escape as Claire is suffering from the effects of a drug that has left her without the temporary use of her legs.

This sees you flying all around the underground society (called "Restoration") that is centred around a plot to trigger a Civil War in America. You must run, jump, blow up, shoot, climb, swing, jet pack and swim your way across the map in order to fulfil your objective and to ultimately, prevent a global disaster from becoming a reality.

Gameplay

From first pick up, this game smells of Metroid. That's not a bad thing by the way, Metroid remains a classic title and is sure to help SC achieve the rank of 'classic' in due course too. Movement is standard stuff by now, left stick move, right stick shoot and a to jump etc. The way the game develops is its shining selling feature however.

From the off, you're a lone wolf with no equipment to your name. From your first pistol pick up, you're set on a quest to rank up (literally, as there's an XP bar tracking your player level on the scale of 1-50) and build up your arsenal to help fight the bad guys. This basically reveals itself by infiltrating secure areas and obtaining (or thieving) a piece of equipment be it grenades, more powerful weaponry or armour add-ons.

With each piece of equipment, more of the level is unlocked for exploration. For instance, venting grills and hatches can be shot off when you've secured a gun, stronger grills may require grenades, higher plains may need extra boost from a double jump jet pack and some may even require you to run upside down at lightning speed to get that grenade pack.

There are also dotted around grenade, health and other assorted packs. When you find each one, you're rewarded with an increased health bar or the ability to carry and store more grenades. This rewards searching and is a useful asset when you inevitably meet up with some monstrous mechanical madmen firing their lasers and what not at you.

As you move on (as I said earlier) you backtrack and go through the levels again but this time more of your environment is available to explore thanks to your new abilities to blow up thicker and more armoured doors with rockets. This is all made easy and possible when you equip and use your torch and shine it around the area. Anything glowing in a colour (red can be blown up by rockets etc.) which is great and easy but got confusing for me (being slightly colour blind) when the colours became hard to distinguish between. Not a design fault with the game, just with me.

All in all, this game is a triumph. This does have a faint whiff of classic side scrolling adventure but there's no question or shadow of doubt that this through and through is a 21st century, high definition and latest generation gaming experience. It's also, a ruddy good one too.

Graphics

Leading from the story, you are treated to short cut-scenes at regular intervals whenever something big is going down. These are reminiscent of full priced retail releases and are very polished and detailed with high production values and really work the Unreal engine to its best.

In game the same high quality feel remains. In a [now] standard 2 and half 3d platform way, the game sits in a fully 3d environment, all of which is extremely detailed and (for the most part) runs faultlessly. Some slowdown could be seen nearer the end of the game as the cracks and load started to show, but this was so infrequent it barely required a mention.

The camera work in the game is excellent too, presenting the game like a constantly rolling slide-show of rooms and settings with every climb to a new ledge, or drop in the water below, you always have a great sense of perception as to where you are within your environment. My only slight criticism, is the back tracking nearer the end of the game didn't include quite enough new locations making the game feel familiar (which is a good thing, knowing where to go next by remembering land marks on the way) but at the same time, made it feel 'samey'.

Animations are of high quality and big bad bosses are equally impressive. The very last level also doesn't disappoint and is a satisfyingly big conclusion and incorporates a new 'twist' to an area you hardly had chance to get to grips with first and must do so, fast. Even with a staggeringly high load on screen at this time, the graphics managed to maintain their detail throughout at this stage making the earlier slowdown (when there wasn't as much going on) confusing.

In summary, the graphics are gorgeous and beautifully realised and captured. Baddies are big, locations are different and detailed and it all links and runs smoothly. One of the best graphical games on the Arcade.

Sound

The use of music in the game typically indicates something bad is around or coming soon so you know to prepare when you hear it. Voice overs are well acted, enemy radio conversations are believable and weapon sounds (explosions, shots, barrels exploding you know the stuff) are also well edited.

Both lead characters will be familiar for those of us who have played Assassin's Creed 2, as the voice of Desmond (Nolan North) lends his talents to add this game to his long repertoire of gaming characters.

Summary

One of - if not the - best games available on the Marketplace right now. A powerhouse exclusive for the 360 and a thoroughly enjoyable experience throughout. The story will keep you coming back for more and with play time set at around 7-8 hours for a quick run through, there's plenty of bang for your book.

Clever use of classic pulling in features such as the ability to rank your character up to 50 XP, achievements synonymous with EPIC game's Gears of War progression system where executing certain tasks a certain number of times will see an on screen indicator of your progress pop up and a gaming environment that's interesting enough to keep going back to makes this a must buy for all.