-

I’ll admit to being out of the loop when it comes to news and previews of this game, so I had never heard of it until it’s release a couple weeks ago. I was hooked immediately on the trial version, so I dropped 1200 MS points on this bad boy. I was not disappointed. Read on for the full Loco take.

Get ready to jump. A lot!

Shadow Complex takes at least 4 or 5 of your favorite old school games and combines them into one excellent game. The first one that will come to mind is Metroid. There’s a lot of similarities, mainly in how you navigate through locked doors as you progress. There’s also some Bionic Commando, Castlevania, Contra, and a few others. Sounds pretty sweet right? It is.

The story is your typical cheesy sci-fi tale, an evil militia is attempting to overthow the US Government, and an unlikely hero arises to save the country, and his girlfriend, who is kidnapped early in the game. (The story is from an actual novel called Empire by Orson Scott Card – Thank you Wikipedia)

The story is really almost an afterthought in this game. It’s fun is the gameplay itself. You start with nothing but a flashlight, and begin your journey. As you progress, you slowly unlock bigger and better toys to play with, up until you have the full package by the end of the game. However the most important of these is the flashlight itself. It reveals different colored objects, of which you can destroy assuming you have the proper weapon. Example, a red door means you need missiles to get through it, a yellow vent means you can shoot it with a gun.

As the game hints after about 30 minutes and you unlock your first real weapon, this is where the real fun happens. Unlocking more ways to explore just adds to the game. You’ll find youself backtracking to find one of the numerous hidden items. These include health and weapon upgrades, gold bars, armor upgrades, and key cards. Addiction factor: Big.

The clear winner of the weapons is the foam gun. This allows you to literally create bridges and paths to places you could never get to before. So by the time you reach near the end or even after, you’ll find yourself trying all kinds of things to find the last of the hidden goodies. (As I type this, I’m at 90% items found, and I’ve covered most of the map.)

Ok, so exploring is fun, what about the combat? Well, if this game has a flaw, it’s here. It can be a struggle to aim your gun in this game, particularly when the enemies are in the background. This can create some frustration on certain parts of the game, but never really to the hair pulling extent. The “Mech” enemies are easily the coolest of the militia, as you’ll discover for yourself.

-

Graphically this game is ridiculously gorgeous for an XBLA game. You will easily forget you’re even playing an arcade game after a few minutes, particularly the cut scenes, look phenomenal.

There is also a “Training Ground” which if you’ve played Bionic Commando: Re-armed, will look familiar. It’s basically a tutorial, but there’s also 3 challenge packs thrown in. These have medals and leaderboards as well, to keep you occupied for a while if trying get 100% completion in the game itself doesn’t.

I’m told there’s unlockables as you collect everything, however as I write this I have not completely collected any particalar upgrade to see them myself. I’ll update this later on as I find the rest of the goodies.

The achievements are mostly standard fare, however 3-4 of them will require a few or more replays of the game and are quite difficult.

Hi Rez: Easily the best game the XBLA has seen to date, and it even ranks pretty high among 360 games in general.

Low Rez: Mildy aggravating aiming controls, you’ll get over it.

Verdict: You must own this game at some point if you’re a fan of video games, it will not disappoint.

9.5/10

Related posts:

• Coming to Xbox: Halo:Reach, Joy Ride, Shadow Complex ?XBox360achievements.org may have outed some of Microsoft’s surprise announcements before the show. The above image shows a blank achievement page...
• Review: Alan Wake (IGN parody version)He hurdles through the air like a giant football in mid spiral. Suddenly, Alan Wake lands his face in the...
• Review: Puzzle Quest 2 (xbla)Ah, Puzzle Quest. The ridiculously addicting original is still a top 5 favorite XBLA title of mine, so when the...
• Adventures In Retro Gaming: Shadow Man, Part 2How will a 17-year-old Trevelyan deal with what looks like a 60 dollar Acclaim™  ­ turd? Will he try returning...
• In case you wanted to try it: Metro 2033 (Xbox 360)I’ll be fair. I can’t completely call this a review, since I didn’t finish the game. And as I personally...