[360] Shadow Complex

[icycalm]

Polygonal Side View Action Shooting by "Chair Entertainment" and Epic Games for XBLA:

http://www.xbox.com:80/en-US/games/s/shadowcomplexxbla/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRtkOvmxFbo&fmt=18






Looks pretty cool. When you use a turret-style weapon it switches into first-person.

[Bradford]

http://www.1up.com/do/reviewPage?cId=3175605&p=4

http://playmagazine.com/?fuseaction=Sit ... entid=1816

These happen to be the two lowest-scoring reviews on metacritic (both 75/100):

When you’re essentially combing over one gigantic 2D map, painstakingly retracing your steps to acquire the necessary components to breach previously impassable barriers to root out whatever evil lurks within, there isn’t much room for error. What makes Super Metroid and Castlevania [SotN] so addicting is a combination of impeccable world design and supernatural nuance, driven by the perfect music and the allusion to a deeper story. Essentially all the places Shadow Complex stumbles.

It's a very nicely-made Metroid knock-off, but it's not particularly memorable. The enigma of the source material, the sense of haunted isolation, the brilliant background music are all completely absent.

Both of these quotes come very close to nailing Shadow Complex's principal failures, although Halverson is way too worried about whether the story is any good, and Parish is misguided for thinking that there is something wrong with copying many elements of Super Metroid so closely. For what it's worth, my experience so far has been enjoyable, and their overall scores of 75/100 seem reasonable.

Incidentally, neither of these reviews mentions the very good idea to have the game automatically broadcast your score-related achievements in real time to your friends while they are playing. That is, if you are climbing the leaderboard on any of a variety of statistics, your friends are sent notices as it happens that they have been surpassed. There is no reason that every game on xbla shouldn't do this.

[icycalm]

Meh. And I was expecting straight-up action.

[Warden]

The biggest problem with this game is the fact that the controls are so sloppy. Your character moves like a slippery turd. Sometimes you can't cling to a wall, or your double jump doesn't work, or you keep locking on to some unimportant guy while a dude with a chaingun is mowing you down.

It's also really linear. For an exploration game, you seem to just explore in a straight line to get to your next upgrade. As far as I can tell, there is no way to sequence break in this game, which is a real setback for multiple runthroughs. If there are any hidden areas, the map & almighty flashlight will make sure you know that that wall can be blown up, etc. It's kind of insulting.

It still manages to be fun, but I think with another couple of months in the oven this could have been much better. It's a shame.