Metroidvania. There, I said it. That’s the only time I’m ever going to say that though. 2D games on the consoles are somewhat of a rarity these days. Even 2D platforming legends, Sonic and Mario, have made the leap to 3D. A good side-scrolling game is good for the soul if done right. Look at Little Big Planet, Bionic Commando: Rearmed, and Muramasa: The Demon Blade for recent examples. Well, you can now add Shadow Complex to that list.
Shadow Complex was released August 19th as a download-only game on Xbox 360′s Live service. It’s about a character named Jason Fleming, voiced by Nolan North, who goes hiking with girlfriend Claire somewhere in the Pacific Northwest. Claire gets kidnapped by some sort of military organization and Jason has to rescue her,which is standard fare. This game has gotten a lot of hype before and since it’s release. Is it worthy of the hype, or should you save your MS points?
YAY:
- The ‘toys’ in Shadow Complex are fantastic. In the very beginning of the game you start out with a flashlight, but it is an amazing flashlight. Every door, hatch, box, or fan in the game that can be manipulated to reach another area is highlighted by the flashlight in the color corresponding to the weapon you need to use. For example, if there’s a door that glows red when your flashlight hits it, you need missiles to be able to breach it, purple you need the foam gun, yellow a regular gun, and so on. Yeah, I just said ‘foam gun’. The foam gun is great, you can sabotage electrical doors, freeze enemies in place, create walkways, it’s a great addition. You also get a friction dampener that allows you to run super fast, a hook that you can attach to ceilings/walls with, and a thruster pack among other things.
- Item hunting is very fun and doesn’t feel chore-like at all. You’ll be so excited to open new areas and get to use your newly acquired items throughout the game that you won’t mind backtracking. Also, whenever you leave a room where there is a hidden item that you didn’t grab, a question mark will be placed over that room’s box on your map. You will be backtracking a lot too, looking for upgrades and items necessary to complete the game, it’s built into the gameplay.
- The gameplay is very solid. There’s no use in having cool weapon’s and gadgets if you can’t use them well. Sneaking up behind guys and using your melee attack just doesn’t get old. Also, regular guns still need to be reloaded, but have unlimited ammo. It takes the worry of ammo conservation away, which is nice.
- Shadow Complex packs a lot of value into a $15 downloadable game. I tried to be pretty vigilant about retrieving items in my first play through, so it took me about 8.5 hours to beat it. I ended up finishing with only 50% of the items. The experience bar will also make you want to play it multiple times. It carries over every play through and it goes all the way up to 50. After my first game I’m only level 17.
NAY:
- Often you’ll find yourself thanking the designers for guns having unlimited bullets, because the aiming can be a little hard to get precise. Aiming is mapped to the right stick and works very well when firing on enemies in your plane of view. It’s just when you try to shoot into the screen where sometimes it gives you trouble. I tried to stealthily shoot a guy standing in a hallway going into the screen and just ended up shooting the ceiling and alerting him to my presence more than once.
Shadow Complex is a great game. It’s one of the better games to come out this year. With a $15 price tag, all the hours you could potentially spend playing it, and just how much fun it is, there’s no way you can go wrong. The aiming can get annoying, but that might just be user error (I do suck at Tiger Wood’s with the right stick). If you have an Xbox 360 and like action games you need to get this, you owe it to yourself.
