Back in August of 2009, Epic Games released the game Shadow Complex. Shadow Complex was a 2.5D shooter starring Nolan North as Jason Flemming, made in Unreal Engine 3 and available on Xbox Live Arcade. It is about Jason as he navigates a massive underground base trying to find his girlfriend, uncover a conspiracy, and save the world.
Storytelling in Shadow Complex is extremely quick, and usually to the point. None of the cutscenes lasted more than a minute, except the concluding cinematic which ran for a little less than two. I was actually a little impressed by this, simply because so many games these days have a lot of drawn-out storytelling and at least a few info-dumps.
There were a few cutscenes that I didn't even see the point of keeping in the game. For instance, one of them consisted of Jason yelling at an enemy to explain the conspiracy, only to be told ?It's none of your business!? It almost made me feel like they were trying to get as much of Nolan's voice acting as possible, just because could.
One major annoyance was that, apart from some with slightly different color suits, most of the enemies looked the same. Even the 'big bad boss.' I know it was only an Arcade game, and it had some size issues...But the fact that they were using the Unreal 3 Engine sorta threw that excuse out the window. The other bosses reminded me a lot of the Bionic Commando ReArmed bosses. Both games had big mechs, yet they were ridiculously easy to kill off.
I mentioned above that the game was 2.5D. The reason they call it 2.5D was because enemies will be on different planes than the player. The camera was usually at 2D mode, but if the player jumped on a turret, it would change to a more first-person-shooter point of view. It was an interesting idea...But I really wish they had pulled it off better. Many of the platforming puzzles could have been simply walked around if the player was capable of moving the camera.
Aiming in 2D was...Frustrating, to say the least. One battle, I was rewarded with a sweet melee animation killing a soldier. There was an enemy soldier on the same spot as me, but further down the plane. I wasn't able to walk down that plane and beat the crap out of the other dude for unexplained reasons. You see, Jason Flemming is a very unique character. For some reason, instead of turning left and walking around an obstacle...He likes to go straight in every single situation. I don't know if it's because he can't turn left...Or if he's just that stubborn.
He also gets bored of weapons fast. Instead of the usual tactic of keeping weapons, and each having different ammo and benefits, Jason throws away all his old weapons each time he gets a new one. Each is a huuge upgrade over the last, and there is unlimited ammo. This would have made dying impossible, if it wasn't for the annoying aiming I mentioned before.
In the prologue of the game, you play as a character who stole a super-powered suit from the bad guys. Prologue ends with the 'big-bad-boss' on his radio, and basically said ?Oh, we have a big red button that will turn off your suit/kill you.? Jason unlocks the same suit, and spends the majority of the game upgrading the thing. You even finish the game with it. I don't know if the bad guys forgot about the big red button or something, but I spent the whole game waiting for the suit to kill me.
Throughout the game, Jason unlocks suit pieces and new weapons that allow him to go further. My favorite weapon was the 'foam gun', which fired some sort of solution that exploded into styrofoam that would keep an enemy (Or gear or something) trapped for several seconds. This made for some fun times, especially with soldiers carrying riot shields. I'd shoot the riot shield, the soldier would struggle to pull it off the ground, and by the time he did? I'd be behind him snapping his neck. There were also suit upgrades that were kinda cool, like the 'sonic lubricator'. Yes, that's from the game. It made Jason run at super-sonic speeds (He'd literally break the sound barrier) if five seconds of momentum is built, until the player stops movement. Didn't make much sense to me, as he'd probably end up with a similar consistancy to scrambled eggs after running into the first wall....
I said above that the bad-guys weren't very clever. Now this may have been a plot hole, but I prefer to think of it as intentional. If this were true, then I think that Chair Entertainment programmed the enemies to be 'artificially unintelligent.' Going through this thought process in the game allowed me to enjoy it more. At one battle, I was on a ramp above a grunt. He shoots at me from below, and even throws a grenade up...To have it fall next to him, yell ?OHSHIT? and explode him into a million pieces. Or it would have, if they hadn't used a (pretty good) ragdoll system. With this philosophy, I was able to think ?Hey, they did a really good job with the story! Even integrated it into the gameplay!? instead of ?God damn this game suuucks.?
Sure, the combat was pretty bad. And the cutscenes were lame. But my real problem with the game? The minimap. It was confusing as hell. It didn't really work, as the map was entirely 2D. I couldn't figure it out, and since the game was nonlinear, I spent a long while going around in circles. Also on a similar topic, several times I tried going into a corner of the screen, only to have the HUD hide the entire bottom right of the screen.
Despite all the problems, I managed to have fun with this game. I beat it in about six hours and bought it for $15. I only recommend Shadow Complex if you're a Nolan North fan, or if it's on sale on the Marketplace. Thanks for reading!
Storytelling in Shadow Complex is extremely quick, and usually to the point. None of the cutscenes lasted more than a minute, except the concluding cinematic which ran for a little less than two. I was actually a little impressed by this, simply because so many games these days have a lot of drawn-out storytelling and at least a few info-dumps.
There were a few cutscenes that I didn't even see the point of keeping in the game. For instance, one of them consisted of Jason yelling at an enemy to explain the conspiracy, only to be told ?It's none of your business!? It almost made me feel like they were trying to get as much of Nolan's voice acting as possible, just because could.
One major annoyance was that, apart from some with slightly different color suits, most of the enemies looked the same. Even the 'big bad boss.' I know it was only an Arcade game, and it had some size issues...But the fact that they were using the Unreal 3 Engine sorta threw that excuse out the window. The other bosses reminded me a lot of the Bionic Commando ReArmed bosses. Both games had big mechs, yet they were ridiculously easy to kill off.
I mentioned above that the game was 2.5D. The reason they call it 2.5D was because enemies will be on different planes than the player. The camera was usually at 2D mode, but if the player jumped on a turret, it would change to a more first-person-shooter point of view. It was an interesting idea...But I really wish they had pulled it off better. Many of the platforming puzzles could have been simply walked around if the player was capable of moving the camera.
Aiming in 2D was...Frustrating, to say the least. One battle, I was rewarded with a sweet melee animation killing a soldier. There was an enemy soldier on the same spot as me, but further down the plane. I wasn't able to walk down that plane and beat the crap out of the other dude for unexplained reasons. You see, Jason Flemming is a very unique character. For some reason, instead of turning left and walking around an obstacle...He likes to go straight in every single situation. I don't know if it's because he can't turn left...Or if he's just that stubborn.
He also gets bored of weapons fast. Instead of the usual tactic of keeping weapons, and each having different ammo and benefits, Jason throws away all his old weapons each time he gets a new one. Each is a huuge upgrade over the last, and there is unlimited ammo. This would have made dying impossible, if it wasn't for the annoying aiming I mentioned before.
In the prologue of the game, you play as a character who stole a super-powered suit from the bad guys. Prologue ends with the 'big-bad-boss' on his radio, and basically said ?Oh, we have a big red button that will turn off your suit/kill you.? Jason unlocks the same suit, and spends the majority of the game upgrading the thing. You even finish the game with it. I don't know if the bad guys forgot about the big red button or something, but I spent the whole game waiting for the suit to kill me.
Throughout the game, Jason unlocks suit pieces and new weapons that allow him to go further. My favorite weapon was the 'foam gun', which fired some sort of solution that exploded into styrofoam that would keep an enemy (Or gear or something) trapped for several seconds. This made for some fun times, especially with soldiers carrying riot shields. I'd shoot the riot shield, the soldier would struggle to pull it off the ground, and by the time he did? I'd be behind him snapping his neck. There were also suit upgrades that were kinda cool, like the 'sonic lubricator'. Yes, that's from the game. It made Jason run at super-sonic speeds (He'd literally break the sound barrier) if five seconds of momentum is built, until the player stops movement. Didn't make much sense to me, as he'd probably end up with a similar consistancy to scrambled eggs after running into the first wall....
I said above that the bad-guys weren't very clever. Now this may have been a plot hole, but I prefer to think of it as intentional. If this were true, then I think that Chair Entertainment programmed the enemies to be 'artificially unintelligent.' Going through this thought process in the game allowed me to enjoy it more. At one battle, I was on a ramp above a grunt. He shoots at me from below, and even throws a grenade up...To have it fall next to him, yell ?OHSHIT? and explode him into a million pieces. Or it would have, if they hadn't used a (pretty good) ragdoll system. With this philosophy, I was able to think ?Hey, they did a really good job with the story! Even integrated it into the gameplay!? instead of ?God damn this game suuucks.?
Sure, the combat was pretty bad. And the cutscenes were lame. But my real problem with the game? The minimap. It was confusing as hell. It didn't really work, as the map was entirely 2D. I couldn't figure it out, and since the game was nonlinear, I spent a long while going around in circles. Also on a similar topic, several times I tried going into a corner of the screen, only to have the HUD hide the entire bottom right of the screen.
Despite all the problems, I managed to have fun with this game. I beat it in about six hours and bought it for $15. I only recommend Shadow Complex if you're a Nolan North fan, or if it's on sale on the Marketplace. Thanks for reading!