Some of the repetition is beginning to grate a little. The gameplay will be familiar to anyone who has played a Metroidvania game before: navigate to a goal via a map, acquire item that gives you access to previously inaccessible area of that map, go to new area to receive new goal, and repeat. The perspective is pulled back just enough to make the polish shine, and even the cutscenes hold up well. Why take the stairs, when you can surf along on hardened foam?Įven today, Shadow Complex looks lovely. What it does contain is a Metroidvania layout, and a 2.5D perspective allowing you to interact with background adversaries, which was pretty innovative at the time. Armed with a backpack containing an infinite amount of ammo but only a limited supply of grenades (because, reasons), he needs to infiltrate a massive underground lair which is laid out in an incredibly inefficient way, and appears to have very little actual operating purpose, like a government project overseen by a team of goldfish. Poor Jason is voiced by Nolan North at his Nolan Northiest. There’s the faceless, vast empire of evil men (yes, every voiced antagonist is male), the pretty yet apparently useless damsel-in-distress, and the plucky everyman / incredibly competent killing machine who just wants to have a normal life and is clearly not happy about this shit.
This feels like the kind of game that every 2D platform developer dreams of making, shortly after indulging in way too many 80s action films. Tucked away in my Xbox library, I thought it was time to give it a fair roll of the dice and see what all the fuss was about, given the multitude of awards it won on release. It’s a game I started playing multiple times and had to stop after ten minutes because something urgent landed on my desk. So, too, does Jason Flemming in Shadow Complex, the best-selling Xbox 360 platformer from 2009. You know when you go hiking, take a wrong turn, and end up uncovering a secret evil corporation buried in a mountain who kidnaps your date? I hate that.
Only the very best games will stand up to scrutiny today. Brutal Backlog is a semi-regular feature where the JDR team plough through some of the unplayed games on their shelves (both digital and physical), disregarding their age or the technical limitations of their era.
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