XBLA Review: Shadow Complex

To say Shadow Complex is a lot of fun and a blast to play would be an understatement in my mind. What we truly have here from Chair Entertainment and Epic Games is one of the best Arcade titles ever to hit the Xbox Live Arcade. After playing just a fraction of this game, your’re going to be truly amazed at what they have created in this download able arcade game and at such a steal for only $15 at that.

Developer: Chair Entertainment
Publisher: Microsoft Game Studios
Genre: Action
Price: 1200 MSP ($15)

Having read Orson Scott Card’s Empire book, as the background for this games story, I’m thrilled with how well the game has turned out and I love the story arc that Peter David has created for the game based on the Empire book. The events in this game run parallel to that of Empire and they fit really well together. Now I don’t want to give away to much from the book or the games story here and will simply say that a Rogue group within the United States has brought us towards another Civil War and our Hero has suddenly found himself right in the middle of all of this.

Jason Flemming sets off to find his girlfriend while out on a hike and equipped with only a flash light in hand, he soon discovers a strange group of men are leading his girlfriend into a hidden mountain side facility. You quickly learn the game controls and how the features of the map work here in these first few levels, as you begin to explore the surrounging areas and make your way inside the facility. You also learn that the group who took your girlfriend, will do what ever it takes to stop you. While searching from room to room, you’ll discover that you need more than a flashlight in order to survive and soon begin to locate other items that might help you progress along.

The controls are laid out nicely and are fairly standard to most games and easy to understand. You move left, right, up and down with the left analog stick and then aim at various targets & objects with the right analog stick. The right trigger is used for the primary firing of your weapons and the right bumper will fire any special weapons such as grenades. The left trigger allows you to crouch and will become your friend on the harder levels, as you look for cover and the left bumper turns on and off that trusted flashlight and clues you in on how to pass certain areas.

Now on to those button controls and starting off with the A button for jumping… lots of jumping from one place to another I’ll say. The B button is for any special actions you might need to perform and you’ll be prompted in most cases when to do so. The Y button reloads your weapons, unless you forget and the hero will auto load for you then. That leaves us with the X button for running to an from all sorts of danger and don’t forget to try some combos like sprinting towards a guard, followed by a nice jump and then landing on top with a finishing melee attack (X, A, B for those following along), all at the right time of course to be successful now.

Shadow Complexis a 2.5 D side scroller and is visually stunning to see and explore; all of this in crisp 3D animation graphics and with great physics provided by the Unreal Engine. Some of my favorite levels have to be the ones with water involved and I’m thrilled, as well as other fans of Undertow, that Chair Entertainment has included a few of these with in the facility to experience. For the most part the game is perfect graphic wise and I only found a couple places where the AI fell into a wall as I took them down during game play, other than that the game was perfect from a visual stand point. 

The sound effects, music and voice acting I think are really good in Shadow Complex and help with setting the mood to all of the action on the screen. From the firing of various weapons or explosive devices, you will have a nice experience in the sound department from Shadow Complex. Even the side elements of fire, water and electricity that you come in contact with will add to this whole audio experience and give you a enjoyable experience.

 The cut scenes and voice acting portions are well done and add to the progression of the games story line, something I’ve always been pleased with by Chair Entertainment and their handling of cut scenes in Undertow. I also like their use of melee cut scenes for the various hand to hand combat attacks through out the game, so don’t always reach for your gun now.

In beating Shadow Complex, as far as the story line goes, it took me just a little over 10 hours on my first play through and it allowed me to explore about 79% of the map and find 42% of the items with in the game. This scored me 6 out of 12 Achievements once I completed my first run through the game. I started out playing on the Hard Core level (3 out of 4 difficulty levels) and found this to be very challenging and I could drop down a level or two in some of the harder portions if needed; a nice feature of this game, that can be done on the fly and at various times.

Finding items through the facility will help you power up and gain access to more areas and is key to your success. As you begin to level up it will become easier to aim and hit your targets and take them out. Leveling up in health and weapons is also a must when taking out some of the boss levels in Shadow Complex and your going to love these levels. The game is also a puzzle game as you try to come up with the best paths to take and find ways in to more areas.

The games playable area in Shadow Complex is a vast area made up of a variety of terrains to explore and as you progress into various areas they will become viewable on the games map screen. If I have any hang up in this game, its with some features of the game map. The game is not exactly scaled to a 1 square, 1 screen, here you are relationship. The problem is if your looking for a certain item in a square, it might not exactly be on the particular screen your located at. Sometimes you will need to climb up an over and around into different areas that appear to be a square over. So keep this in mind while your looking all around for certain items.

This game is filled with so many rooms and situations and each seems to build over and over as you dive deeper into the game. Most of the levels stick to the side scrolling theme, but the use of depth of field comes into play with AI in the background and it gives the game a totally different perspective at times. At least a few times you will locate a mounted gun and at this point the game will switch into a first person view as you lay waste to all of the opposing forces that are attacking you. 

I tell you I really enjoyed the ending of Shadow Complexand how they wrapped stuff up in this game, even though it seemed to pop up all of a sudden and was perhaps a bit over the top in some aspects, but it was still a real blast to play. I feel that they have concluded this story arc and left plenty of room to bring back Jason for a sequel later on. If you hadn’t heard about it yet, Orson Scott Card is expected to release his second of three books in the Empire series this December, so perhaps we very well might see a Shadow Complex 2 & 3.

That’s not all, there is even more value and play with the Proving Grounds section and it extends the fun for this game well past the fairly long story line. I think you should wait and play these levels after beating the games story mode first. Some spoiler information and things could show up early if you don’t. This section is set up as more of  a training simulator of sorts with the levels designed in pretty much black, white, and shades of gray here. You have various speed challenges to complete from some standard training levels and then on to three sets of Challenge Packs, that have a total of seven levels to beat in order to move on to the next. You can play these over and over and work at earning higher medals in the Proving Grounds portion of Shadow Complex.

Checking out the Leaderboards area allows you to keep track of your progress and see how you stack up against your friends. Its also cool to see which friend is next on your list to bump off with the latest kill or bomba punt you perform as you play in the game or simply take a break between the action and check out the full leaderboards and see where all of your friends are stacking up at.

Shadow Complex recieved lots of praise after it was announced at this past years E3 and it clear lives up to all of the hype. Fans of classic side scrollers like Metroid and Castlevania will love what this game has to offer on the Xbox 360. Shadow Complex is a game you will want to play over and over, from speed run mode and trying to get through with as few of the items or in completing other challenges and trying to hit every part of the map and gather 100% of the items, you will clearly enjoy this sure to be an instant hit from the Xbox Live Arcade. (A+)

Robert Owens

2 Responses to “XBLA Review: Shadow Complex”

1. Keman says:

   September 1, 2009 at 3:21 am

   This game is my new obsession I love it.
2. TXPaladin says:

   September 1, 2009 at 12:08 pm

   I like playing this and hanging out in the Party Rooms with friends. Has a bit of puzzle and shooting wrapped up in a nice package. Its fun to sprint through three different rooms and just fire away. Head shot, head shot, head shot… next room an repeat!