Shadow Complex Preview: Best XBLA Game?

By Travis Moses
June 03, 2009 13:53 PM PST
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Watch out PlayStation Network, Xbox Live Arcade games recharge!

GamePro Senior editor Sid Shuman and I discuss the state of Xbox Live Arcade versus PlayStation Network games on a weekly basis. Our assessment is that PSN has the better games all around, quality versus quantity, while XBLA is cluttered with retro-style ports and a few gems here and there.

Visually stunning and genius designed games like Super Stardust HD, Echochrome, and PixelJunk Monsters truly showcase the power of the PS3 and are easy to download from the online PlayStation Store. Mundane remakes and old-school port games like Scramble and Root Beer Tapper clutter up Xbox Live Marketplace and make it more difficult to find the fewer XBLA gems such as Castle Crashers, Braid, and The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai.

There's a shift in the wind, though. Microsoft may hit their stride this summer with Shadow Complex, a side-scrolling action game heavily inspired by classic 2D games such as Super Metroid and Castlevania that incorporates game design concepts from the current generation of 3D games like Uncharted: Drake's Fortune and Gears of War.

The animations are surprisingly stunning for an Xbox Live Arcade game. We can't help compare the exaggerated leaps and wobbly stumbles to Uncharted: Drake's Fortune.

Secrets Underground

The story behind Shadow Complex is a complex, no pun intended, tale of political conspiracy, future weapons, and global takeover. You play as a common man who stumbles upon a secret underground facility when hiking in Washington State Park with his girlfriend. She wanders off, gets captured and is mistaken for a spy. The goal is to rescue her, but you'll also uncover the biggest conspiracy cover up in history.

Playing Shadow Complex looks to be simple, just like a side-scroller should. Though your character's movement in Shadow Complex is restricted to a 2-dimensional plane, the characters and environments are in full 3D. The controls aren't that different from a console first-person shooter, move your character around with the left thumbstick and aim your weapon with the right thumbstick, squeezing the right trigger to shoot. Your character can also jump, crouch, reload, melee, and sprint by pressing the face buttons, and select different weapons on the directional pad. Your character will automatically lock-on to enemies that hide in the background layers of the environment so long as you're aiming in the general direction.

The game kicks off with a bang, putting you in control of an elite soldier with full upgrades and end-game weaponry-just a taste of what you'll unlock throughout the game. At this stage your character can hyper sprint fast enough to run up walls and on water, triple jump with a booster jet pack, and has access to the most powerful weapons in the game. The explosive opening sequence culminates in a boss fight against a helicopter that plays like a classic side-scroller, such as bosses from Contra and Mega Man.

As you explore the underground complex, steal the enemy's futuristic weapons to equip hyper running shoes and jet packs.

Flash of Genius

When the game takes you back to Washington State Park your character is left with a mere flashlight. This flashlight, though, can be shined on certain objects to reveal color-coded secret entrances, such as doors that can only be open with a grenade or ventilation grates that must be shot open. This is where the Castlevania-style exploration comes in, earning you experience points for every new area you explore. Opening the world map reveals the same type of map you'll find in 2D Castlevania games.

Of course you'll first need to find the backpack with hiking gear in it that allows your character to grab onto ledges and climb objects. Then you'll need to find a laser-sighted pistol, grenades, and the other entire cool tech hidden throughout the secret military complex to progress through the game. One cool weapon we saw in particular fires globs of thickening agent that can be used to stun enemies and even create bridges.

We're pretty excited for Shadow Complex and we hope it marks a change for the better with Xbox Live Arcade games. We enjoy the retro ports, but with the amount of PSN games we play it's obvious we're clamoring for something fresh and new. Welcome Shadow Complex to usher in a new era of XBLA games.