(Played on Steam Deck with the remastered version. 6 hours to see the credits roll on Normal.)
When then Epic Game Employee Cliffy B walked on the Microsoft’s E3 2009 Press Conference stage, I for one thought “Isn’t it bit too early for Gears of War 3? Two came out merely months ago after all.” Turns out, what’s announced then would be more influential and arguably better. Its title is Shadow Complex.
The Metrovania or Search Action as the Japan call it, is a subgenre of action adventure that seemed to be stock on handhelds during the aughts. Shadow Complex seemed to plant the flag for the subgenre on so-called big boy console again when it came out during Xbox Live Arace in August, 2009. While its main developer Chair never managed to get a sequel going, its co-developer Epic’s direction would be changed by it and remained the course here in the early days of 2026.
The 3 acts of action
Under a “Fascism invading its own land first” scenario, Jason Fleming goes to hiking on the advice of his new girlfriend Claire. He finds a secret base hidden in the mountains while Claire is taken by the mean and armed to the teeth scugs in said base. Fleming, who was basically trained by his father into a commando at a young age, has to put those skills to the test, turn the enemies’ advance weapons against them and save the girl who likes his blue eyes.
As a smaller scale affair, Shadow Complex adapts the three-act structure of feature length movie to a T. The game gives player 3 main tasks: first locate the girl; second secure the girl’s exit; third go back and kill the baddie in charge. I wonder if the game being polygonal is the reason why it did not do the “dungeon per chapter” thing its sprite based counterparts more keen on.
With the storage limits 360 era Xbox Live, Shadow Complex did not aim for the more detailed texture like Gears series did back then. With the game’s enemy faction Restoration feeling like the Cobra in G.I Joe, the game certainly went for a toy play set like with its side scrolling levels. And being someone who only gamed on 360 back then this one was the Nolan North game I played until Spec Ops the Line. No, with Mr. North not voice any ancestors, I am not counting any of 5 Assassin’s Creed game on 360.
Now I got the power armor. Ho-ho-ho!
Maybe as an homage to the Metroid franchise, Shadow Complex’ movement suite collection is contextualized as collecting parts for a suit of power armor and other weapons. Well, for the most part at least. Since the game’s real opening talked about hiking in a mountain and exploring caves, climbing gear and flashlight are put in and they sure are not part of any power armor.
The humble flashlight with the left bumper is one method the game put in “modern design”. With graphic still closer to so-called photo real, the color-coded barriers are hidden until the flashlight is shed on them. Green for grenade, purple for foam, red for missile and blue for the power armor’s accelerated movement.
Guess the one foot this game put in Epic Games’ polygonal outputs would be its fire-arm focused combat. The game does not let one switch weapons freely, but the guns does get more robust, from a handgun to submachine gun, 2 types of assault rifle and full auto shotgun that is not required to clear the game. Right trigger to show, right stick for aim with laser, up face button to reload and no ammo limit.
Aforementioned grenade, foam and missile all have limited use with right bumper. Upgrading the capacities of those is one incentive for exploration. Right bumper also activate the gripping hook, a much later game upgrade.
The rest of button mapping would be left trigger to duck (Also trigger the power armor’s ground pump when air bound), left face button to move fast (Also trigger the power armor’s accelerated movement after a certain distance), down face to jump obviously, and right face button for interaction including the contextual melee attack.
The polygonal presentation has its ups and downs. One up would be pseudo first person turret sequences when player got to aim freely at plains they cannot move to. I dare say they are so much more fun than those in Gears of War games, mainly because they gives out the scene of moiling down enemies and more varieties. There are machine gun, rocket launcher and mounted foam gun. Even the final boss fight is about shooting 3 bigger rockets at a big ship with turrets and regular enemies to dodger from.
Speaking of bosses, those being recurring elements rather than bespoken rogue galleys. At least the spider tanks are one toe-to-toe and other from puzzle like. But heavier armors blokes are taking their pisses when it’s require to fight one, then another and finally a tag team. The chicken walker is surprisingly fun one now I had a playthrough on Normal. It requires the player switch between all types mapped to right bumpers. Too bad it’s the only type demands so.
Now the down side of polygons, the game’s combat is just not as tight as its sprite based and melee focused counterparts. As mentioned before there are plains outside the side scrolling that player cannot move to but enemies appear there. The auto aim at those can be tricky. The contextual melee does not always appear on cue. But with the game being more exploration driven, the combat just serves the adventure well enough.
Forward the Fortnite
As a game sharing releasing month with G.I Joe: Rise of Cobra, Shadow Complex scratched my then 19 years old ass’ itch regarding Hasbro’s near future military themed brand better. The interactive experience of one brave Joe destroying a Cobra-like force’ secret base single-handedly just hit the spot.
And I guess this vision of virtual toy box had made an impact on Epic Game. Of course, Faraxi’s XCOM reboot would be close as well, being a virtual board game and polygonal revival of a 16-bit era genre. But Fortnite, a blackhole of both tie-in game and virtual action figures, seems like Epic learning all the wrong lessons possible from co-developing Shadow Complex…