Shadow Complex Remastered - Review

The other day I was searching through the PlayStation Store, looking to burn some of my hard earned cash, and I came across a game I had almost forgotten about - Shadow Complex.  I had played the first hour or so on someone else's console a good few years back, before it had been remastered.  I always wanted to try it again and for under €5 I couldn't pass on the chance.


Pizza's are awesome, so many toppings, so much choice, no matter what kind of mood you are in it's hard to say no to having one. I like anything with a lot of meat on it (wahey!), but sometimes I like a simple cheese pizza.  It's not the most adventurous pizza but still pretty tasty and it's great if you can't decide what you want.  There are some cheese pizzas that have four, six and even eight different kinds of cheese.  While sometimes variety can be nice, for me any more than four kinds of cheese is too much for me.  Playing Shadow Complex Remastered I found myself asking, did it have the right amount of cheese or was it too cheesy for me?

Story

Enter Jason Fleming, aka Nathan Drake, aka Nolan North, underachiever, and slight disappointment to his dad.  After meeting Claire, and going on a few dates she decides to take him out to the wilderness on a hike, what could go wrong?  Nothing, nothing at all, apart from stumbling onto a secret base controlled by a James Bond-like villain.  Claire gets captured (a lot) and it's Jason's mission to infiltrate the base and save her (multiple times).

Unlike Uncharted, that comes across as charming and a little cheesy Shadow Complex is super cheesy and not in a good way.  Everything is very cliche and the story itself is pretty weak, which is surprising as it is based on books by Orson Scott Card that sound really interesting.  An example of the cliches littered throughout the game is the line Jason uses after confronting the villain, 'Who are you?', 'I'm no one and everyone'.  My eyes rolled so heavily I almost caught sight of my own brain.  To put a ribbon on this puppy, the story is not great.

Visuals

There are good and bad things when it comes to the visuals in the game.  The cut sequences look bad, which is a shame as it was supposed to be remastered.  Jason's face looks like a swollen potato with a face drawn on it and character movements often look clunky.  The areas you explore are mostly inside the enemy base, after a time I found them a little dull, save for a few areas, like where the armored suit is being kept or when you go outside and get to experience nature.  That all being said there are some really cool things too, the mech suits the enemy have are impressive, silent takedowns look good and the torch lighting effects look really good especially when being used in the ventilation system. 

It's not the worst looking game by any stretch of the imagination but is definitely not the most inspiring or interesting either.

Music

The score features a big orchestra style sound that is present throughout the game, as a whole though I never really took notice of it in the way I do in other games.  Being honest though, with the style of game it is there is no great need for it.  The two creators and composers of the score are:

Josh Aker, who is a video game composer for Chair Entertainment, his works include; Infinity Blade 1,2 3, and Undertow.

Isreal Curtis, who is a composer, in honesty I could not find a lot on him, his works include; Jerk Theory, A Dog's Tale, and Vampired.

Additionally, Shaun Barrowes, a pop artist who released an album called Big Bang Theory has a song that is used in the end credits called 'Light of Day/Dark of Night' which is pretty good.

The score comes in at just over forty-five minutes,  the soundtrack is okay but definitely not the most exciting, my favorite pieces included;  'Shadow Complex Main Theme' and 'Light of the Day/Dark of the Night'. 

Gameplay

Onto the pizza!  The gameplay is very similar to Metroid, for those of you who don't know what that is, shame on you.  Exploration is the name of the game, in the early parts you will run into obstacles you can't overcome, that is until later when you unlock new weapons and items. The first item you get is a torch which can be used to identify obstacles and what you need to get past them, it also doubles up as a torch.

The game gives you a handgun to start with later gets swapped out for better guns as you progress.  Once you start using the assault rifles enemies become a little easier to deal with.  Every now and then you will get the chance to operate a turret, this will change your perspective and allows to you really unload on enemies.

While you will obtain many items my favorites were; friction 'damn-pner', which lets you run so fast you can kill enemies, smash through obstacles and run up walls.  The grenades/missiles, which to me both seemed as powerful as each other were both really handy.

When traversing through the game you can listen in on enemy conversations which can be funny at times, especially the one in the mess hall discussing the difference between liberation and conquering.  

Final Thoughts

After little over five hours, how did I feel?  Not bad but not great either.  The story is pretty weak. The visuals have a lot to be desired, which is really disappointing for a game that was supposed to be remastered.  The music is present but underwhelming.  The strongest part of the game is the gameplay itself which was pretty fun.  This one was little tough to score but I finally decided that this one gets 3 out of 5